


Apocalypse

by Narsil



Series: The Raven [3]
Category: Ah! Megami-sama! | Oh My Goddess!, Ranma 1/2, Teen Titans (Animated Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-08
Updated: 2014-01-14
Packaged: 2017-12-10 18:30:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 46,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/788878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Narsil/pseuds/Narsil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It has been four years since Ranma/Raven left her mothers behind in Asgard, running away to Jump City just in time to join with Robin, Starfire, Beast Boy and Cyborg as the Teen Titans. Still, for all their victories over the years, Raven always knew that there was one enemy they would have to face and could not defeat - the demon that supplied half her soul, Trigon. Now the day has come, and not all the Titans' efforts, not her demonic/divine mothers, not Hild or Kami-sama can prevent the confrontation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Prodigal Daughter

**Author's Note:**

> This is the third story in my series, _The Raven_ , following _The Raven_ and _Rocky Ground_. If you have not read those stories, you are going to be more that a little confused.
> 
> The story title comes from both meanings of the word: the revelation of something hidden, and the end of the world.

_Four years later:_

Pre-dawn, and the light coming through Raven’s wide window slowly brightened. The raven-haired, gray-skinned girl winced, twisted in her sleep, then lifted one arm to block the light. She groaned, forced open sleep-encrusted eyes and froze in shock, gasping at the sight of glowing red glyphs running along her arm.

Instantly wide awake, she bolted out of bed and flew to her mirror, and found what she had feared just before her power lashed out and the mirror exploded. The same red glyphs ran down both arms and legs and circled her torso, glowing right through the skin-tight black leotard she used as both costume and bedwear, and down her bare legs. And her father’s sigil glowed red on her forehead, centered underneath the red diamond-shaped bindi her Aunt Skuld had given her the day her guilt had led her to abandon Asgard and her mothers for Earth.

The day of the world’s ending had arrived.

Her shoulders slumped as she closed her eyes, fighting to keep the piece of her shattered psyche that was Despair from taking over. For a moment she considered yet again trying to kill herself, but rejected the thought — she had broken her promise to her adopted grandfather and tried time and again the day after her last birthday, her eighteenth and only weeks past, when Slade had returned from the dead to first awaken the glyphs. But the powers she had inherited from her father had turned against her, bound her, shielded her, moved her to safety, moved and even destroyed threats, whatever was needed to keep her alive and well. No, self-destruction simply wasn’t an option, and she didn’t have the time to waste.

Turning from the mirror as her hooded cape floated over to draped itself across her shoulders, she walked over to one of her shelves and reached out to touch a crystal knickknack shaped like a racing motorcycle, sending a tiny pulse of power into it. The knickknack lit up with a pure, white light for a long minute before pulsing twice.

That done, she stepped to the center of her room and waved a hand, and the dark energy she commanded for all purposes but one washed out across her room, lifting the piles of books that she had read again and again as she’d futilely sought to find a way out, shifting them against the shelves lining her bedroom walls to leave the floor empty. With the space cleared, she floated over into the center of the room and shifted legs and arms into the lotus position. She closed her eyes as a circle of pure white light sprang up around her, and a split-second later was falling — and then flying — through the same fractal tube that had first delivered her to Earth.

Within seconds, much faster than her first return trip _two_ days after her last birthday, she was approaching the white fractal barricade that protected the Divine Realm from intrusion, then flashed through. She ignored the sensation of hostile, overpowering force awakening as it recognized her inheritance and straining to be unleashed, to obliterate her — thanks to the exception that Kami-sama had ordered be made for her that she’d learned of on that first return trip, she wouldn’t be that lucky.

Then she spurted out of the same gate that she had used to leave four years earlier, spinning in the air and bringing herself to a halt, hanging in the air in front of the Gate’s circular plane of multi-shaded white fractals.

“In a hurry, much?”

Raven turned in place to face the voice to find a young woman waiting, hair as raven-dark as Raven’s own framing the blue hollow teardrops on forehead and cheeks, in a face as cute now as it had been when she had been a child. The coverall and T-shirt that the goddess had worn when she had seen Raven off four years before, and the much more feminine shimmering silk-like folds of a dress she’d worn the last time Raven had seen her several weeks before were absent, replaced by a tight bodysuit that radiated power to Raven’s Sight. Still, there _was_ a smudge of oil along one side of her nose.

“I need to get back to my friends,” Raven replied, and tried to force a smile as she dropped down onto the tiled circle in front her aunt-in-heart. As the last time she’d met Skuld several weeks earlier, she again squelched a spark of incongruous Pride at how close the two were in height, now — Raven had done some growing, over the past four years, and could almost look the goddess in the eye. _It doesn’t matter, now_. “Hello, Aunt Skuld, as cute as ever.”

Skuld mock-scowled. “Don’t remind me,” she growled, “I’m getting tired of the ‘little sister’ routine. One god I was hoping would ask me out actually patted me on the head!” She grinned at the laughter forced out of Raven, before sobering. Reluctantly, she asked, “Is today the day?”

Raven’s laughter cut off. “Yes,” she whispered, gaze dropping, distantly surprised when she realized that the sigils on arms and legs had vanished. _Not that Aunt Skuld needed to ask, not dressed like Mama Lind,_ she thought. She didn’t know how the Norn of the Future had known, maybe her job title was all the answer she needed?

She shrugged the concern aside — she _was_ short on time. She asked, “Did you find anything useful?” Maybe ... but Skuld shook her head.

“No,” she said regretfully, “nothing that can stop the Devourer. You aren’t surprised, are you?”

Raven shook her head. “No, I’m not,” she murmured. And she wasn’t. She had found any number of tomes and mystical items hidden away in various bolt holes when she had returned to search the temple to Trigon that Slade had lured them to the second time he had sprung up, deep underneath where Jump City’s first library had been built (which might have had something to do with the library’s abandonment, now that she thought of it, swift enough that books were still on the shelves). As Skuld said, when she’d gathered up everything she could find and broken her self-imposed exile from Asgard a second time to deliver what she’d found to Skuld and asked her to check out the heaped-up pile of random loot, Raven hadn’t _really_ expected a cult dedicated to bringing her father to the Earth to have a way to keep him out. Still ... “Did you find _anything_ , anything at all?”

“Yes, I did,” Skuld replied, “but I don’t see how it can help you.” Reaching into her still-favorite storage place when in battle dress (if for a somewhat different reason, now) — between her now obvious if not bounteous breasts — Skuld pulled out a small clothe pouch embroidered front and back with sigils. She opened it and dumped four black crystal rings into her palm. “Rings of protection, against the Devourer’s arrival,” she said, “whoever has one of these on her person when he arrives won’t be locked in stone and turned into a life force battery.”

“And that is supposed to be an improvement?” Raven asked, peering at the rings — the circles of crystal seemed to sing to her, her sisters in power. “When my father comes, Earth will become a barren wasteland. Anyone with these rings might be able to get water from rainfall, but that just means they’d die of starvation.”

Skuld suppressed her wince at Raven’s acknowledgment of her relationship with Trigon. Instead, she shrugged nonchalantly. “Who knows? The Devourer is a very nasty piece of work. Perhaps he views a lingering death on a dead world to be a suitable reward for helping him kill it.”

“Yes, that sounds like him,” Raven agreed absently as she gazed at the rings, feeling Hope and Love rising, fighting with Shame. Hope was the weakest of her emotion fragments, Love much stronger, but the two combined weren’t strong enough to force Shame down. Abruptly turning away from her aunt, she stepped over to the edge of the gate’s tiled circle, gazing into the grove of trees that surrounded it. She couldn’t stop the world’s end, but thanks to the rings she could save _a few_. But she’d need help to do it, and not just from Skuld.

Behind her, Skuld waited as the seconds ticked by, then finally sighed and stepped over to join the (much) younger girl. “When you visited me a few weeks ago, you didn’t tell me that it was your second return visit,” she said conversationally. “Father’s not talking, as usual, but you wouldn’t believe some of the wild rumors going around about it.”

Raven chuckled mirthlessly. “If those rumors say that I actually attacked him and managed to tear up his office, they’re right.”

“What?!” Skuld shouted, turning to stare at her adopted niece. “In Father’s name, _why_?”

Raven shrugged. “I tried to force him to kill me,” she replied. “Wasted effort, of course, I never had a chance. He just let me throw him around, use _him_ to break up every piece of furniture and decoration he had until I tired.” _And then sat down in the middle of the debris and held me until I cried myself out — just like five years ago_. The memory of that night rose in her mind: Kami-sama sitting on air, holding her as she’d sobbed out her fear of her own dreams, and the memories they would bring. And as well, she remembered what her grandfather had said about her mothers and their love — and Hope and Love triumphed as Determination joined them, forcing Shame back into the recesses of her mind that all her fragmented, personified emotions shared.

Straightening, Raven turned to a Skuld still stunned by what she’d just heard. “I’ll need the rings. And ...” She hesitated, but could feel Love and Determination pushing her, demanding. “ ... and I need to see my mothers,” she finished.

/\

_A few minutes earlier:_

In the early predawn (the daily cycle of their piece of Asgard long since adjusted to match that of Jump City, since Raven had made that city her own), Mara lay in the bed she shared with Urd, her arms around her lover. She stared into the dark, counting Urd’s breaths, as she had all night as seconds ticked away into minutes and minutes into hours. As she had every night since Raven’s birthday — the day that Skuld had called to tell them that the time they’d all feared had come, that the runes needed to channel Raven’s life into the portal for the Devourer had manifested, and for the monster to make the link his daughter shared with all that lived on Earth — to Gaea in all her glory — his own.

Since then there had been only one other report from the Norn of the Future, when Raven had returned to give Skuld her findings from the temple of the Devourer’s now-dead cult. Urd had demanded that they all receive links to the bindi Skuld had given Raven when she left so that they could monitor Raven as well, but Mara and Lind had talked her out of it — they had originally decided to give up their own links because of how much of a distraction they’d proven, what with the Teen Titans’ many fights, and would prove even more of a distraction now. And with the Devourer’s coming at hand Lind and Urd, at least couldn’t afford any distractions, not when they were preparing Hild’s Furies and Kami-sama’s Valkyrie for the battle to come. If Raven failed and the Devourer came, maybe — _maybe_ — they could defeat him while he was still weak, if they hit hard and fast enough. But only if the wings of the Valkyries and Furies worked together, and over the past few weeks Lind and Urd had been hammering that need into their subordinates (occasionally literally) as they worked out joint plans and areas of responsibility.

Which was why Lind and Urd were the ones sleeping under a mild compulsion placed on them by their co-mother, while Mara lay sleepless hour after hour, night after night. True, as a goddess and a god/demon hybrid, at need they could have gone without any sleep at all since Skuld’s first report and still been functional on the day of reckoning, at least so long as they kept any exercises of their power to a minimum. But they needed to be more than just functional, they needed to be at their best, while Mara — no fighter, not at the level of Lind and now Urd — didn’t. So they slept, and she waited.

Then even as the predawn light slowly brightened a soft alarm chimed, the tune it played out letting her know that Skuld was finally calling again — finally, and much too soon.

Heart in her throat, Mara cancelled the sleep compulsion as she rolled over her lover and dashed to the bedroom’s vidphone to hit the acceptance stud. The phone’s hologram sprang to life to reveal Skuld in her battle-dress bodysuit rather than the typical grease- and oil-stained blouse. The youngest Norn promptly blushed beet-red and slapped a hand over her eyes, anddemanded, “Could you two put something on before answering your phone? Or at least use the audio-only?”

Mara glanced down at her nude body, then back over her shoulder to where an also-nude Urd was sitting up in bed, sheet pooled about her waist. Since Skuld’s call on Raven’s birthday, sex for the pair had gone from an occasional (though pleasant) pastime to a nightly comfort — both divine and demonic lacked the biological imperative behind mortal sex drives mandated by the need to replace each generation, but it still played a role in building and affirming the closest of relationships. And Mara and Urd had needed that affirmation and the comfort and temporary forgetfulness it brought _very_ badly. Also, the full-body skin-to-skin contact had helped Mara immeasurably, both during her nighttime vigils and carrying over into the days between. Personally, Mara didn’t know how Lind was dealing with their daughter’s situation without it.

Urd paled, but that was the only sign of her recognition of who was calling and what the reason for the call had to be. She rolled out of bed and snatched their discarded robes from the floor, handing Mara’s to her before shrugging into her own. Mara quickly followed suit. “It’s safe to look, sorry,” she apologized.

Skuld peeked through her fingers, then dropped her hand with a sigh of relief, frowning quellingly at Urd’s soft chuckle. Her big sister seemed to have decided that Skuld was too much of a prude (somehow completely missing her little sister’s attempt to make herself more attractive without appearing to ‘come on’ to anyone) and was determined to ‘loosen her up’ a bit, and Skuld was getting tired of it. But she had more important concerns than her sister’s teasing, so she ignored Urd’s delight in her embarrassment. “It’s time,” she announced simply.

Urd’s chuckling instantly cut off. Now all business, she asked, “The runes have activated?” Skuld nodded, and Urd sighed as Mara’s hand latched onto her own. “Has she contacted you yet?”

“No, but —” Skuld broke off as she glanced to the side. “Yes,” she continued, “there’s her signal.”

“Good, we’ll leave you to the meeting, then, while we get our own plans activated.” Urd reached for the ‘off’ stud, then hesitated. Just as Skuld was reaching for her own stud, she hurriedly asked, “Skuld, could you ask her to visit us, before she goes back?”

Skuld paused, then nodded sympathetically. “Of course,” she agreed, before the screen vanished.

“Today’s the day?”

The lovers turned to find their purple-haired co-mother standing in the doorway, already wearing her own white blue-trimmed battle suit. “Yes,” Urd answered.

Lind nodded. “Get cleaned up and dressed, I’ll send the alert to Kami-sama and Hild, and the Valkyries and Furies’ current watch officers,” she said, and turned to race down the hall even as Urd and Mara agreed.

/\

The two had finished their rushed ablutions and Urd was helping Mara with the last fastenings of her red and gold battle suit with its ubiquitous twin streamers (instantaneous cleaning and dressing one more unnecessary use of power perhaps needed later), when they heard the visitor’s chime sound, from the main entrance. The goddess and hybrid rushed for the foyer, slip-sliding and bouncing off walls in their haste, arriving just as Lind slid open the door to reveal Skuld ... and in front of her, their daughter.

The gray-hued girl had her hood draped down her back and her cape slung back over her shoulders to reveal the usual leotard ... no ankle-boots, no gold chain-and-flame-red jewel-belt, no wrist-guards. Raven’s face was invisible as she stared at the step into the house, but Mara could see the tremors running through their daughter’s body, and ribbons of dark energy were undulating around her.

Raven jolted slightly as Skuld gently pushed one shoulder. “Go on,” the Norn encouraged, and Raven took a stumbling step across the threshold before looking up, violet shoulder-length hair framing wet violet eyes. She opened her mouth only to struggle silently with herself for a long moment, before abruptly wailing, “Momma, I’m sorry!”

They never learned which mother she meant or just what she was sorry for — leaving (running away, to call it by its right name) when they needed her as much as she needed them, the four years of silence that followed when she could have returned at any time, the world’s destruction she was about to help bring about, any or all of them. Before she could continue Lind pulled her close, Mara and Urd hugging them both. Raven melted into the embrace, sobbing as her Momma Lind pulled her face down to her shoulder and Mommas Urd and Mara gently rubbed her back and murmured encouragement and comfort.

Finally, Raven’s tears eased off and she sighed and straightened, shrugging off the three-way embrace with a watery, apologetic smile. Behind them Mara heard a sigh of relief, and the four turned to find Skuld slumping and her arm dropping to her sides, face beaded with sweat, as the last signs of the bubble of energy she’d encased them in faded away — and the last hints of Raven’s dark energy with it. There were some scorch marks on the walls, a window was missing most of its glass and a side table and chair were so much kindling, but their home still stood.

‘Nice going, little sis, thanks for making sure we still have a house,” Urd said wryly, and her co-mothers laughed softly at Raven’s furious blush.

Raven hastily turned away from Skuld and looked over her mothers and froze, eyes widening. Almost against her will, she reached up to trace one of the red triangles on Urd’s cheek, looked over at the blue triangles and slash marks on Mara’s face — the evidence of her two mothers’ change of allegiance. “What ... when ... how ... ?” she stammered, new ribbons of dark energy beginning to flicker around her.

Lind commanded, “Easy, control!” and watched sternly as Raven closed her eyes took a deep breath, and the fresh energy ribbons faded away. “Better,” Lind said when Raven again opened her eyes, and Mara reached up to trace her own blue cheek ‘tattoos’, smiling.

“Just after you left,” Mara said, “say hello to the new Norn of the Past.”

“Norn of —” Raven broke off and looked over at her Mamma Urd.

“The newest commander of Niffleheim’s Furies,” Urd said, grinning at Raven’s shock.

“Because ... because of me?” Raven managed to ask, voice barely audible.

“Yes,” Urd said, face turning grim, “because of you ... because of what Genma and Rothgan did to you. Because I needed to help make them — make others like them — _pay_ for their sins.” She paused and took a deep breath, forcing a gentle smile, before continuing, “But as wonderful as it is to have you here again, we’re running short of time. What do you need from us? You _do_ need something from us, don’t you?” Raven stiffened for a moment before her shoulders slumped and she nodded sharply, her eyes falling. Urd reached out to cup her chin and tilt her head back up. “It’s not your fault,” she said softly. “Blame the powers you inherited from the Devourer, blame the need for control _we_ taught you — emotionally charged confrontations aren’t exactly conducive to keeping iron control of your emotional state. Your memories of your life as Ranma, what Genma did to you, can’t have helped. It’s not your fault. Now, what can we do for you?”

Raven looked desperately at her other mothers, and took heart at Mamma Mara’s encouraging smile and Mamma Lind’s calm nod of acceptance. The Valkyrie seemed her normal stoic self, now that the hugfest was over, but to anyone that knew her — and Raven did, even after four years — she practically glowed with happiness at their daughter’s return. “It’s good to have you home, whatever the reason for your return, however short it might be,” she said quietly. “How can we help?”

Raven turned to Skuld. “The rings?”

Skuld again pulled the bag out from between her breasts (scowling at her big sister’s lifted eyebrow), and quickly explained the rings’ purpose as she handed it to Raven. When she finished, Raven took over.

“I’m going to give these to the other Titans, so they’ll be protected from Father’s arrival,” she said. “When ... when I’m gone, and Father has come, I want you to rescue them, to give them a home here in Asgard as long as they need it. Can you do that?”

Her mothers exchanged glances. What their daughter was requesting broke all kinds of rules — the only reason Belldandy was going to be able to save her husband and children was because they were bound to her by marriage and blood.  But then Urd nodded. “Yes, we can. If need be I can find a place for them in Niffleheim, Mother won’t mind.”

Raven’s eyebrow rose at Urd’s reference to Hild — it was the first time she could remember her mother using that label for _her_ mother — but let it pass, one more thing she would never learn the story behind. She was running out of time, and had one last thing to do before she returned to Titan’s Tower. “Thank you,” she said quietly. “Is my mirror still in my meditation room?”

Urd shook her head. “No, we moved it to your bedroom,” she replied as she and her co-mothers stepped to the side.

/\

Raven sat crosslegged on her bed and stared at the mirror her grandfather had given her so many years before, watching as her sister — well, _sort of_ her sister, there wasn’t any genetic relationship anymore but would have been if she’d still been Ranma — tinkered on a motorcycle, half the engine spread on the concrete around her. In the five years since Raven has last used the mirror her little sister had done a lot of growing up, and now she filled out her blouse and leather pants nicely. Raven still found it hard to believe that Nodoka had approved — though considering how short her sister’s platinum blond hair was cut, not even shoulder-length, and the leather jacket she was wearing, apparently this time _Ranma’s_ mother had no problem with her daughter being less than womanly.

“Well, maybe Mom learned something,” Raven murmured. Not that it was going to matter once her father came, whatever her grandfather said about the souls sleeping until life rose again to provide bodies for them to be born into, and taking their current life experiences with them — no matter how hard she tried she just couldn’t take that long a view, not in her heart where it mattered.

Still, she was putting off who she _really_ wanted to check on, and she didn’t have time. She opened her mouth, then froze as a new girl walked into view, stopping next to Ranma’s sister and saying something (at least, so the way her lips moved indicated — the mirror didn’t come with sound).

Even though she was dressed in a school uniform, the only word to describe the girl was ‘elegant’ — she exuded grace with every move she made, and her light green hair gave her an exotic beauty that took Raven’s breath away, as much or more than Aqualad ever had. Raven was suddenly acutely aware that she wanted to _live_. Yes, the baby that Raven had left with Nabiki and Kasumi to raise had turned out very well, indeed. _It’s not fair!_ she wailed to herself, and seemed to hear a familiar snort.

 _What gave ya the idea that life’s fair?_ Ranma’s voice seemed to echo mockingly from her past life, and she had to smile wryly.

 _Nothing, I suppose,_ she thought back. She didn’t have time for an angstfest, and since she had already briefly looked in on Ku Lon (she could still remember her shock when she remembered Ranma’s first encounter with the ‘old ghoul’, and realized who had been living with Nodoka and the Tendos all those years), as well as Kasumi, Nabiki and Nodoka, she had one last person to check in on. “Show me Akane!” she commanded. The view in the mirror vanished into the familiar glowing mists, then cleared to reveal her former fiancée, seventeen years old, the raven-haired girl dressed in T-shirt and shorts. She was lying on her stomach on a bed, propped up on her arms with a school textbook open in front of her.

Raven lifted up from her bed and drifted over to the mirror, and reached out to touch its glass over the oblivious girl. The reincarnation of the angry, sweet, distrusting, supportive, spiteful, friendly girl whose strike at Ranma’s back had set up the redhead for her murder — and who had then, when her attempt to kill herself failed, had trained for a kamikaze run on Niffleheim to rescue the spirit of the girl she’d helped kill and, when Raven came to her, tried to guarantee her friend’s freedom at the price of her own life. As always since she had remembered Ranma’s time with that damaged girl-child she couldn’t watch her without a storm of conflicting emotions and when one of a pair of crystal flower vases on the dresser beside the mirror exploded she hastily cleared the image. It had been so easy in the heat of the moment to tell Akane she loved her, to promise to reawaken her memories — to finally work things out between them, friends or lovers. Now, it was one more broken promise. “I’m getting as bad as Genma. I’m sorry, Tomboy,” she whispered.

“Forget it, Raven, you couldn’t be as bad as that waste of a life if you tried. It isn’t in your nature.”

As the second flower vase exploded, Raven continued to stare at her reflection for a long moment, fighting the urge to tell her Aunt Skuld exactly what her _nature_ was. But however true it might be, it wasn’t what the goddess needed to hear — and it wasn’t as if it would matter in the end. When she again had herself under control, she turned to the door and forced a smile for the youngest Norn. “Let me say goodbye to my mothers, and you can send me back.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter title comes from (in my opinion) possibly the finest short-short ever told in human history, the Parable of the Prodigal Son.


	2. Preparations

Slade Wilson knelt on one knee on the rough rock floor of a natural cavern lit only by the rivers of lava that ran through the room, his gaze lowered from the glowing white outlines of inhuman eyes. He was dressed in his usual dark blue and black armored costume, with its mask vertically divided between black and orange, but was untroubled by the intense heat as he listened to the deep, gravelly voice of his current employer.

“The time has come. The prophecy shall be fulfilled. Tonight at dusk when the planets align, the portal will be opened. Finally, the Earth shall be mine!”

“I will make sure that Raven realizes her destiny,” Slade responded stolidly. “And for bringing you your precious portal, I expect you to keep _your_ part of the bargain and return what is precious to me.”

“You bring me the portal, and you shall get what you deserve.”

“Deal.” Slade rose to his feet and turned to leave the chamber, ignoring his graceless almost-shambling gait. “It’s a beautiful day for the end of the world.”

Not so much as a hint of the complete disconnect between the end result of his assignment and the payment he required for his help crossed his mind.

/oOo\

Finally changed out of the partial costume she’d slept in and dressed in a fresh set of her full costume, Raven stood on the roof of Titan Tower, gazing across the bay at the sun rising over the hills beyond Jump City’s urban landscape. She suspected that Skuld had cheated a little when the goddess had manned the console of the gate, sending her adopted niece back in time a few minutes to the moment she’d left when she’d returned her to her bedroom in Titan Tower. Raven rather thought that Skuld had violated all sorts of regulations with the tiny time loop, but didn’t see much chance of a paradox. _She_ certainly wasn’t going to say anything about it to anyone. She was grateful to her aunt for the opportunity to see the full sunrise of her last day.

_My last day_. Raven turned over the thought in her mind, amazed that it lacked the jagged edges of anger and guilt that had always torn at her before her reunion with her mothers. Their unhesitating, unqualified acceptance of their wayward daughter even after the way she’d abandoned them four years before — of the unconditional love she’s always sensed shorn of its own jagged edges of guilt and anger from when she’d left — had healed something within her, allowed her to finally accept that some things were simply beyond her control. That she really _was_ guiltless. For the first time in five years, she truly felt at peace.

“What are you doing up so early?”

Raven glanced sideways before looking forward again, unsurprised by the approach of Robin — her empathic power had detected him as soon as he came out of the stairwell, of course. She said, “I could ask you the same thing.” The raven-haired semi-official vigilante was dressed in the same red, green and yellow costume he’d worn when she’d first met him, but he’d done a lot of growing up in the intervening four years. He’d been a boy then, determined to do the right thing but slightly bitter (she never _had_ learned just what had led to his break with his mentor). Now, he was an experienced and undisputed team leader and her good friend. She still felt a bubble of happiness whenever she thought of how he’d proven that yet again, with his ready acceptance of her even after learning of her true nature and destiny, though her disbelieving shock had faded over the weeks since that day. Even now there wasn’t a hint of discomfort at her presence.

“I love sunrise,” Robin replied. “The promise of a new day, anything’s possible.”

“Are you always so cheery this early?”

“Pretty much. Looks like it’s going to be a beautiful day.”

She hadn’t seen many sunrises, since arriving in Jump City — her early mornings were usually taken up with meditation, controlling her father’s fury snarling at her core — and now she luxuriated in the uncomplicated delight she sensed as he watched _this_ sunrise. She owed him the best day she could give him, she owed them all. _So let’s give it to them_. She glanced over again at her friend and gave him a genuinely happy smile. “Yeah. Hungry?”

/\

Raven kept her face impassive as she stared at the ... whatever they were ... frying on the stove. They were _supposed_ to be pancakes, but while they at least had the proper shape, sort of, she had a sneaking suspicion that pancakes were supposed to be a rich golden brown, not brown-black. She remembered them being smooth and soft, too, instead of bubbly and hard, and stuck to the stove-top to the point that she was beginning to consider the possibilities of a hammer to help jam the spatula underneath one and pry it off.

_Okay,_ she thought as she scraped the pancakes off the stove and piled them on a plate, to carry over to her waiting team. _I know I’m no Auntie Bell or even Kasumi, but this is ridiculous! You’d think I was_ Akane _reborn, not_ Ranma _... though at least none of the pancakes have come to life and tried to kill us._ Now that wasn’t precisely fair, the tomboy had never been _that_ bad. Toward the end, some of her attempts had even been barely edible — the day Ranma was murdered simply hadn’t been one of them.

Raven did have to admit — to herself at least — that the boys were being a lot more polite than Ranma had been — they were actually trying to eat her ‘masterpiece’. Princess ‘I can eat anything’ Starfire was plowing through her serving with every indication of enjoyment, right down to the happy greed she was radiating, but considering some of the orange-skinned, flame-haired alien warrior’s own culinary efforts that wasn’t exactly a comfort. Raven didn’t know if Starfire was her own family’s equivalent of Akane with the added twist that she actually enjoyed her own cooking, or if Tamaranean cuisine was really that bad (the fact that Starfire compared the pancakes to something called ‘incinerated glorkaroaches’ and asked for more was a big hint) but either way the result was the same.

It was a profound relief when the alert sounded to let them know they were needed in the city.

/oOo\

Urd stood by the special portal set up in the middle of Nifflheim’s residential district set aside for mothers with her black and white angel manifested, both her and World of Elegance looking around carefully while one of her Furies identified each mother and child that passed and check them off her list. They had only gotten started and it was going to take awhile. There were other things Urd would rather have been doing, but it wasn’t every day that a portal in Nifflheim opened directly into Asgard, even if only to one of the suburbs — the suburb where Urd lived with her co-mothers, actually, this district’s divine counterpart. Which was why both Urd and one of Lind’s Valkyries were bracketing the Fury with the checklist, guarding the Nifflheim side just in case any demons were feeling especially stupid that day.

Then the oscillating angry-red oval flashed brightly for a moment, indicating someone was coming through from the other side. The Valkyrie stopped the demoness about to step through and gently pulled her and her two children (almost unheard of and so probably twins) out of the way, and Urd’s eyebrows rose as Lind stepped through. Her co-mother strode toward her as the line began moving again.

As Lind joined her, Urd asked, “Anything wrong on your end? Who’s watching?”

Lind shook her head. “No, everything’s running smoothly, so I thought I’d join you here. Mara’s filling in for me.”

“Mara?” Urd frowned — Mara wasn’t the fighter her co-mothers were, and considered a traitor by demons. “Are you sure she’ll be all right? I could send through another Fury.”

“If it makes you feel better,” Lind agreed with a shrug, “but I don’t believe it is necessary — the Valkyrie may be there to guard all the mothers and children, divine and demonic, from anything the Devourer might send through, but they are just as capable of protecting Asgard from the demons as well. And I don’t expect any gods to try anything, Kami-sama’s orders were explicit — they are to be treated as guests, whatever they’ve done in the past. Which doesn’t apply to the children, of course, since they haven’t had the chance yet. And while we’re capable of being stupid, we’re more disciplined than you lot — even moreso on average, now that you’ve switch sides,” she added, the thin smile that she used in lieu of a broad grin on her face.

Urd didn’t verbally respond to the not-so-subtle (and atypical, for Lind) teasing, instead reaching over to poke the Valkyrie beneath the ribs, precisely targeting a spot that previous experience had shown to be more than a little ticklish and laughing has Lind hopped away from her. It was good to know that she wasn’t the only one dealing with especially intense pre-battle nerves.

Ignoring the glares from those mothers in line willing to show their displeasure at the camaraderie shared by the ostensible enemies, Urd nodded at one of the now-grinning nearby Furies guarding the line. “Jessica, go through and join Mara, with Lind here we’ll be fine.”

“You got it, boss.” Jessica tossed off a sloppy salute and strode over to step through the portal.

Urd turned her attention back to the line as Lind rejoined her. The hybrid was amused to see that even as Lind summoned her own two angels and the three began watching the line and looking around for possible threats, the Valkyrie was holding her halberd upright with one hand and was careful to keep her other arm where she could intercept further tickling attempts. Of course, Urd was doing the same to shortstop any attempted retaliation.

After a few minutes of silence watching worried mothers and frightened children move by, Lind murmured low enough that no one in the line could hear them, “Normally I pity demons for their inability to form lasting relationships — to trust each other. And the way their children are forced to grow up so quickly is a travesty. But this time it’s really working for us, isn’t it? There’s nowhere near as many children as there’d be the other way around, we’ll be done here in no time.”

“Growing up quickly’s worked for us in more ways than one,” Urd said. “Raven’s really grown up, the past four years.” To her horror her voice was shaking by the end and louder than she’d intended.

Lind lifted the hand she’d tasked for possible intercept to squeeze Urd’s shoulder. “Raven may be the strongest person I know,” she said softly. “She’ll be all right, you’ll see — Kami-sama knows what he’s doing, and so does Hild.”

Again, Urd didn’t respond verbally, not noticing how the glares from the demonic mothers morphed into sympathy as she reached up to cover Lind’s hand with her own. Also unnoticed, the nearby Furies exchanged glances and silently shifted to cover the pair’s zone of responsibility, letting the two stand silent, waiting.


	3. The Beginning of the End

As the Teen Titans walked through their favorite park (well, the _others’_ favorite park, Raven’s favorite wasn’t on Earth), through scattered trees toward the stretch of lawn they played on regularly, Raven made sure to be in the lead so that the rest couldn’t see her smile — her smile sometimes made people nervous, even frightened, and that wasn’t what she wanted for her friends.

Actually, so far the day was recovering from the pancake fiasco handily. Remembering that culinary disaster, Raven winced — it seemed some things hadn’t changed much from Ranma to Raven, like being able to admit when she’d taken on more than she could handle, even to herself. _At least, when I haven’t had my face rubbed in it as much as my failure to stop Father, or even slow him down._

Raven shook off the dark thoughts and focused on the happy, satisfied feelings from her comrades behind her. The alert had turned out to just be Plasmus. While the massive purple ooze monster the unfortunate Otto Furth turned into whenever he awoke was hard on the landscape, he was more disgusting challenge than serious threat. The fight had been enough to give her friends a thrill and a feeling of accomplishment without actually hurting them, and the pizza she’d paid for out of her own allowance afterward (silent apology for the pancakes) had put everyone in an even better mood. And now it was a beautiful mid-morning in a park filled with happy children at play (and their sometimes frazzled adult minders). Things were going so well that she was getting nervous.

“Dude!”

Beast Boy’s excited shout from the rear of the team had Raven’s heart leaping into her throat and she whirled in place, lifting off the ground as one hand thrust out, glowing black — and she forced herself to freeze in place at the sight of the jokester of the team holding up a penny he’d just picked up off the ground.

“Find a penny, pick it up ... something, something, something ... good luck! It’s my lucky day!” the green-skinned boy enthused, practically dancing in place as the rest of the team stared.

Raven shook her head wryly as she sank back down to the ground, shivering a little from her adrenaline-fueled rush. _I don’t think I’ve ever known anyone so easily made happy,_ she thought as she drank in her friend’s uncomplicated joy.

Apparently the others agreed, from their smiles at Beast Boy’s antics.

Then Cyborg held up the rope of cloth soaked in the foulest smelling chemicals the boys had been able to find and twisted around itself into a ball. “Anyone up for a game of _extreme_ stank ball?”

“Yeah, sure,” Raven said nonchalantly. _Why not? I can survive the stench for one game, and it’ll make them happy if I join for once. It’s not like Plasmus didn’t stink worse, and I already got thoroughly splattered when I finally knocked him out._

Unfortunately, she’d gone one step too far. The rest of the Titans turned to stare at their gray-skinned friend, eyes wide, radiating shock. Beast Boy managed to say, “But you hate anything extreme, or stanky.”

Raven shrugged. “Maybe I never gave it a chance,” she said in an attempt to get back her friends’ happy feelings. She hid a wince — she wasn’t much better a liar as Raven than she’d been as Ranma.

Abruptly Starfire was floating in front of her, hands clasped and smiling, radiating hope. “Raven, would you still have time to join me in the painting of the toenails, later today?”

Raven hid another wince, and smiled. “Sounds like fun.” She was rewarded by Starfire’s instant blaze of happiness.

Unfortunately, that happiness wasn’t shared by the boys, who were all staring at her suspiciously. Eyes narrowed, Robin asked, “Okay, Raven, what gives? Pancakes, pizza, stank ball, toenails?”

“Yeah,” Beast Boy added, “and she hasn’t called me stupid all day. Did someone replace Raven with a Raven robot?”

Still smiling, Raven tried for a lighthearted tone as she replied, “I just want everyone to have a nice day, today.” She floated away from her friends, turning to hide her watering eyes. “Come on, we have a lot to do ... before ... sunset....”

Even as she spoke the mid-morning light dimmed, and the Titans’ eyes looked upwards at a sun turning dark as a formless shadow stretched across the sky.

 _No, it’s too soon!_ Raven silently wailed as she turned in place to watch with wide eyes as the last of the blue sky vanished behind its dark veil, just in time for the command to hammer into her: **Go! Now!**

“No, never,” she whispered, ignoring the panicked questions from her friends, her body swaying in air as she fought to reject the summons with every fiber of her being. Then the runes that had come to life that morning again sprang into red glowing existence along her arms and legs, the sigil of her father centered on her forehead, and she collapsed to the grass with a thump as her muscles went limp. _Damn,_ she thought, resignation again sweeping through her. She’d been sure there would be some kind of built-in failsafe, she couldn’t be the first of Trigon’s ‘children’ to fight him during his uncountable eons of feeding after all, but for once she’d hoped she was wrong. She hadn’t been.

Robin shouted, “Raven!” Dashing to kneel at her side, he gently slid a hand behind her head, lifting and turning her so she could look up at him. “Why didn’t you tell us? It’s happening, isn’t it?” Raven forced her eyes to focus on her leader’s masked face through gathering tears, Beast Boy and Cyborg on each side and Starfire hovering above them to stare down, the concern they were radiating written on every face.

Her voice shaking, Starfire asked, “Please, Raven, today is the day? It is ... ?”

Raven found she was too weak to even nod. “The end of the world,” she whispered. Her tears broke loose to roll down the side of her face into her hair, and Robin pulled her up into his lap as she wept.

/oOo\

“The last of the consignees that aren’t personally assigned have been shifted to the central holding bunkers,” Ingrid, the latest lost soul assigned the task of Hild’s secretary, reported from the tiny holographic viewscreen floating above the platinum blonde, star-tattooed Mistress of Niflheim’s desk. “None of the demons with personal punishment details have accepted your offer to look after — or accept responsibility for — their own consigned souls, though. You would think they don’t trust you.” She smirked. “It would really be a shame if something happened to any their palaces during the chaos.”

Hild shrugged, ruefully reflecting that Ingrid had been her secretary just a _little_ too long. Not only had she gotten over her fear of her mistress, but she’d realized the nature of Hild’s deception and had begun to actively tweak events in ways that she thought would help. Hild was finding that having a secretary that was not only comfortable in her presence but actively anticipating her wishes and willing to risk getting it wrong to be a very pleasant experience, indeed. It wasn’t doing a thing for _Ingrid’s_ ultimate salvation, unfortunately, she was falling back into the same scheming ways and delight in others’ pain and misfortune that had damned her in the first place, but Hild had reluctantly decided that breaking in a new secretary just as everything else was breaking loose was a _bad idea_. Once the fate of the world was settled one way or the other would be time enough to shift Ingrid to an assignment that could heal the fresh damage, and choose a new secretary. Assuming there was a point to having one for the next few million years, which there wouldn’t be if Raven failed — once the Devourer moved on it would take awhile for the Earth to recover and another sentient race to evolve.

Still, just because Ingrid was getting malicious again didn’t mean she was _wrong_ , and even the comfortable relationship with the Daimakaicho that her secretary had fallen into didn’t stop her from shivering at the sight of Hild’s dark smile as the Daimakaicho thought of the secret assignment she’d given Trethgar. Not her Furies, not for this — giving those tasked with enforcing her laws an assignment that treated the books those laws were written in ( _not_ stored in Nidhogg, she didn’t want to make things _too_ easy for her underlings) as so much waste paper was another _bad idea_. After all, part of the point of the Furies was to ultimately teach the enhanced lost souls that filled its ranks of the primacy of justice over vengeance, and there was precious little justice and a great deal of vengeance in what Hild had planned. Besides, she didn’t want her daughter learning about her plan until it was all over, and it would hardly be possible to involve the Furies and keep their commander in the dark. Not after how completely Urd had won their loyalty.

Speaking of which ... “Ingrid, get me Urd —” She broke off as a stud on her desk started blinking blue, and a new holographic screen sprang to like to show a familiar park (Hild had often made use of the surveillance Skuld had planted on Raven, right in the middle of her forehead). Hild’s expression froze as the mid-morning light dimmed, and the view shifted upward to show a shadow sweeping across the sky. The time had come. “Belay that, I’ll take care of it. Trethgar, escort Ingrid to her own bunker before seeing to your own assigned duty.”

The husky ebony-skinned demon pushed himself away from the wall he’d been leaning against. “My pleasure, Mistress,” he rumbled, and strode through the door leading to the anteroom to Hild’s office and was gone.

Even as the door swooshed shut, Hild was bringing up her desk’s vidphone function and a moment later a new holo-screen showing Urd’s face sprang up. For some reason, her daughter was blushing. One eyebrow rose, and Hild smiled slowly when she noticed Lind standing behind Urd, the Valkyrie also blushing. “My, my,” she murmured, “is there anything you want to tell me, child?”

Urd shouted, “No!” Her blush deepened at her mother’s teasing laughter, then she reluctantly smiled for a moment before sobering. “Mother, you received the alert?”

“Yes, I did,” Hild replied, sobering as well, though she paused for half a second to delight in the simple label of ‘mother’ that her daughter had used. And not simply the label, but the tone — no sarcasm, no inherent rejection and judgmental condemnation, no hatred, just simple acceptance and even a little affection. They weren’t exactly close, not in only four years since Urd had rejoined her, not with the way Urd had thrown herself into her training and new duties as head of the Furies and the reputation Hild needed to maintain. But they were no longer enemies. Hild liked to think that they were even becoming friends. In a few decades, perhaps they’d be back to what a mother and daughter should be.

“Yes, I did,” Hild repeated, refocusing on the task at hand. “How goes the transference of the mothers and children?”

“We’re just about done here, the last should be through in ... call it five minutes. As per the plan we’ll be closing the portal from the Asgard side after that, and heading to our battle positions.”

Hild nodded. “Very well, I will see you after. And Urd ...” She hesitated for a long moment. She was the Daimakaicho of Niflheim, there were demons and Furies in earshot, she had a reputation to maintain — and she realized she didn’t care, not now. Maybe not later. Voice softening, she said, “Urd, I love you, please be careful.”

Urd stared, struck speechless until Lind lightly slapped her alongside her head. Rubbing the side of her head (okay, perhaps the slap hadn’t been _that_ light), Urd forced a smile that Hild supposed was supposed to be reassuring. “Hey, I’ll have Lind watching my back, nothing’s going to happen to me,” she asserted. “But I’ll be careful ... Mom.”

The screen vanished as the connection broke, and Hild leaned back in her office chair for a moment, smiling happily. Urd hadn’t said she loved her, but that was the first time she’d called her ‘Mom’ since before she’d angrily abandoned Niflheim — and her mother — for Asgard and her father. It would more than do.

Then she shook herself free of her happy reverie and leaned forward, fingers flying across her holographic keyboard. She had her own tasks to perform in case Raven failed, and she started the protocols for linking Nidhogg to Yggdrasil, so the two world computers could jointly bring down the Doublet System. Earth wasn’t the only world whose divine and infernal sides had tied their warriors’ lives together to prevent a bloodbath, and from rumors they’d heard from some of those worlds the Devourer had overrun the monster had somehow tied his own shock troops into the network so that for every one of his troops that fell the defenders lost one as well. There would be no chance of that happening here.

Even with most of the disengagement set up in advance, she was still typing in password after password when the stud on her desk started blinking again, this time a pure white. Hild paused for a moment, staring — what did her ex-husband want to talk to her about _now_? — before redoubling her speed for the last of the passwords so she could accept the call.

/oOo\

Belldandy smiled, leaning back against her husband as she watched her laughing children play on the lawn of the park where her family had just finished their picnic dinner. Her oldest, Norihide, and his current girlfriend had been the first to leave, taking a walk together; her oldest daughter Tamiko was playing catch with her younger siblings and some of their friends, tossing out a frisbee for the others to compete over catching; and Belldandy was in her favorite spot in all the world, her husband’s arms.

Belldandy and Keiichi had known this day was coming, and that they had two options for Keiichi and the children — stay on Earth and share the fate of the rest of its people, or flee to Asgard to wait it out there. In the end, they had chosen to remain on Earth. True, taking the children to Asgard would have meant revealing the full truth of their mother’s nature to them, but that had been at most a minor issue, quickly set aside. Instead, the deciding factor had been their children’s future — or rather their _lack_ of a future — in Asgard if the Earth died. In the end, Belldandy and Keiichi had been unable to accept their children living out their lives as essentially intelligent pets in a world in which they had no purpose. So instead, after it became clear on Raven’s birthday that the end was coming they had simply informed their children that some time in the next few weeks they would be having a family evening together, then settled down to wait. Skuld’s call that afternoon had told them that the wait was over, and their own calls had gone out to their children that the family party was on. With their favorite cold foods and some of their friends joining them — and Norihide’s girlfriend — it had been a wonderful time on a beautiful evening, full of laughter and fun.

The triangle-tattooed goddess sighed happily, snuggling deeper down in her husband’s arms, then giggled as one of the smallest children (young enough she was barely walking) was lifted up by an older brother so she could — with help — catch a softly thrown frisbee, only for her helper to be tackled by several of the other youngest as soon as their triumphantly crowing sister was safely back on the ground to cries of “Cheater!” and “Our turn!” While the goddess had had no issue with satisfying the more demanding physical needs of her husband’s mortal body, she had been ... uncertain ... about bearing so many children so quickly. It was not the immortals’ way — in truth, it wasn’t the choice of most modern _Japanese_. But she had acquiesced to Keiichi’s unspoken desire, and now she was happy she had. As nerve-wracking as keeping track of over a hand’s worth of children could be even for a Goddess 1st Class, Unlimited, every one her children was uniquely precious.

Keiichi joined her amusement and she shivered at the sound of his soft laughter, only to stiffen as the evening light began to dim. She forced her unwilling eyes upward then slumped as she watched the sign of the Devourer’s coming flow across the sky, sliding over the setting sun and dimming the light to cast the land in sudden, odd, starless twilight.

A suddenly stiff Keiichi asked, “It’s time?”

“Yes,” Belldandy replied, “now we learn if Raven is as strong as we hope. But while we’re waiting to find out, let’s have the dessert.” She stood up with a sigh, forced a smile, and called out to the children now staring at the sky that it was time for the Mochi ice cream. Dessert proved _much_ more important that whatever was happening to the sky, and Belldandy knelt to open the cooler as the small mob of family and friends thundered toward her.

/\

It was several minutes later, as Belldandy pulled out the packets of wet wipes for messy faces and hands, that Keiichi’s cell phone rang. She was turning toward the children as her husband pulled the phone out of his pocket and accepted the call, only to freeze at the sound of his “Yes, sir.” There was only one person that warranted that particular respectful tone, even after He had personally officiated at their wedding, and so she wasn’t surprised when Keiichi offered her the phone and said, “Your father wants to talk to you.”

“What? _Now!?_ ”

The children all turned to look at her, eyes wide — while she had learned to be firm (eventually), they had _never_ heard her shout like that.

She accepted the phone with a shaking hand and held it to her ear. “Yes, Father?” ... “No, Father, my family —” ... “Yes, I understand that I am not the only mother —” ... “No, Father, I have not relinquished my responsibilities as a Norn. You are right, I will be there as quickly as I can manage.”

Shoulders slumped, she terminated the call and handed the phone back to her husband. Turning to the still-stunned children, she said, “I’m sorry, Mommy has to go. Please listen to your father, and I will be back as soon as I can. Remember, Mommy loves you.” She pulled the ones that were hers into firm but quick hugs, kissed Keiichi just as quickly but firmly on the lips, handed him the wet wipes, then strode off toward the park’s closest public restroom as she wiped at her eyes. There was a mirror there she could use to return to their home and its permanent portal to Asgard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At Fanfiction.net a number of reviewers commented on the pancakes, wondering why Raven would force the rest of the Titans to eat food she _knew_ was bad when she was trying to make them happy. I've given a bit of the in-story reasoning in this chapter, which I think works more-or-less — she expected to do a lot better when she started, and inheriting Ranma's "never admit defeat" attitude does have its occasional downside. For the more meta-plot reason, it came right out of the cartoon episode story is based on, probably to illustrate just how hard Raven's trying even if it doesn't quite work. I felt it fit well enough to keep it.


	4. No Cavalry Coming Over the Hill

In another rocky chamber, much more expansive than the one where he had knelt before his master Trigon, Slade stood against one wall looking out across the rough floor. As with the first it was lit only by the rivers of lava running through it, and the radiant heat would have had any normal human prostrate and gasping in minutes. But Slade ignored it as he looked out across the shadowed floor, luxuriating one long, last moment in the power he’d been granted before raising his arms like a symphony conductor calling for a crescendo. His voice deep, he intoned, “Rise!”

Explosions rocked the cavern, hole after hole blown in the floor, and from the holes rose his army: demons like flickering red man-sized match flames reversed to taper to a point on the floor, given arms tapering to handless pointed tips and wavering dark eyes. The explosions continued as rank after rank formed, until the cavern floor was filled with hundreds of the flame demons.

Slade shouted out, “You all know the day! You all know your targets! Now, march!”

Instantly, the army broke up, scores after scores breaking away from the mass to fly through the ceiling lost in darkness, until only several score were left floating before Slade, waiting.

Without a word, Slade turned and lumbered toward the passageway leading to the surface. It was time to collect his master’s errant daughter.

/oOo\

The automated raft docked at Titans’ Island, and the team stepped off to stride up the slight incline to their T-shaped headquarters — all except Raven. She was still unable to walk, tremors running through her body as she fought the summons bred into her soul by her ‘father’. Instead she was being carried by her Black teammate Cyborg, one half-machine arm under her cape- and leotard-covered shoulders and the other under her bare, gray-toned legs, her head resting on his mechanics-covered shoulder.

“I don’t understand,” Raven murmured as they approached the front entrance. “It’s too early, I was born in the evening. We should have had all day for fun.”

Robin leaned over so that the optical scanner could verify his identity. As the line of blue light crawled up across his eyes, he asked, “Where were you born?”

“Tokyo ... oh, I forgot the time difference, it’s evening in Japan. I’m so stupid!”

“No, just acclimated,” Robin disagreed as the door slid open.

The five teenagers entered and quickly passed through the common room to turn into a hallway toward the storage rooms and garage.

Raven lifted her head from Cyborg’s shoulder to look around. She asked, “Where are we going?”

“A special room we’ve prepared,” Robin replied. “Since we learned Trigon is coming we’ve been making plans, we’re ready for him.”

“Wait!” Raven cried out. “Wait, we need to go to my room first, I have something there for you, to help.”

The others exchanged glances and Robin shrugged. “The signal’s already gone out and the perimeter alarm’s quiet,” he said, “we should have time. Cyborg, hand her to Starfire.”

“Yes, give me friend Raven, I shall keep her safe,” the orange-skinned alien princess agreed, eagerly floating forward with her arms outstretched.

As Cyborg handed Raven over, Robin continued, “Starfire, if the perimeter alarm goes off you need to get Raven down to the safe room as fast as you can fly.”

“I understand, I will fly her to the room of protection,” Starfire replied. “Now let us hurry to the room of sleeping of friend Raven.”

/oOo\

_Metropolis:_

Clark Kent, intrepid reporter of Metropolis’s premier newspaper, the Daily Planet, sighed ostentatiously as he failed yet again to get around the car quickly enough to open Lois Lane’s door on the driver’s side for her, while hiding a grin. Lois didn’t bother to hide hers as she smoothed down her stylish skirt. It had turned into something of a game for the two, Clark would ‘attempt’ to offer his old-fashioned, ‘Smallville’ manners for his co-worker and rival, and Lois would make sure to move fast enough to cut him off before he got the chance. Occasionally she’d twit him good-naturedly for being so far behind the times, but just as often she’d fail to hide her pleased smile fast enough to keep him from noticing. Add the two’s competition for stories and recognition as their paper’s star reporter, and it made for an interesting working relationship (however much Clark might like to change it to a _romantic_ one).

Not that there was going to be any awards for _this_ interview, just a city father wanting some media coverage with enough pull to get the best.

The sudden change in the day’s light caught both reporters’ attention instantly, the two looking up as a sourceless shadow stretched across the sky from west to east, the sun dimming as if eclipsed when the shadow covered it.

“Wow, that’s a new one,” the raven-haired woman said, her hand over her eyes for shade she no longer needed. “You ever seen anything like this, Smallville?”

“No, I can’t say that I have,” Clark replied, also staring up at the sky and frantically trying to come up with an excuse to leave so he could contact the Justice League satellite headquarters. The Martian Manhunter had the watch and Wonder Woman spent much of her time there studying her new world, hopefully they would have an idea what was going on —

He jerked as his cell phone vibrated. Hurriedly pulling it out of his pocket and accepting the text message, he paled at the message displayed on its tiny screen. _He’s coming!_

“Hey Clark, are you all right?”

Clark looked up to find his rival/potential love interest watching him, clearly concerned. At least he had his excuse. “Yes, I’m fine,” he replied. “A family emergency, I’m afraid I’m going to have to beg off the interview.” It was even true, for a certain definition of ‘family’.

“Do you need my car? I can call a taxi —”

Clark shook his head. “There’s time, I can call a taxi.”

“If you’re sure....”

Clark hastily agreed and made his farewell, and within minutes the by now _very_ familiar blue- and red-clad figure of Superman was flying through the sky above Metropolis, he would be at Jump City on the opposite side of the continent in minutes and could make the call to headquarters when he arrived —

Even as he streaked up through Metropolis’s airspace, strange flame-like creatures sprang into existence around him and instantly attacked, some flashing toward him as others fell back.

Superman dodged the first, second, third, dodged and struck out at the fourth (carefully holding back, he had no idea how fragile these things were) ... and choked back a shout as his fist erupted with fiery pain, just before a bolt of fire slammed into his back, annihilating the symbol of the El family crest on his cape and charring the back of his costume. Superman plummeted toward the ground, smashing down onto a parking garage roof. These creatures were magical! _They must be Trigon’s, of course they are._

Still, it wouldn’t be the first time Earth’s premier superhero had faced enemies armed with one of his greatest weaknesses. He lifted up from the shallow crater he’d smashed into the concrete and hovered as he quickly scanned the opponents diving toward him with his x-ray vision, and grinned. No real mass, no internal structure — simple flames given form and power by magic, not living creatures. And _that_ meant he could stop holding back.

Sucking in as much air as he could compress into his lungs, he blew with all his strength, turning his head to scythe through the diving flame-things as the gale-force winds snuffed out enemy after enemy. Lungs empty, he sucked in more air as he streaked up into the sky through the hole he’d literally blown through the enemy ranks — only for others that had hovered above rather than dive into the fight to charge in from all sides; some flinging out arms impossibly long to hammer into him; others to wrap their arms around his legs and torso and dive for the ground, pulling him behind them; yet more firing more fiery blasts to hammer him down. And even as he blew more out of existence, the first that he had annihilated flashed back into existence.

/\

_The Rio, Las Vegas:_

Zatanna smiled as she looked out across her audience. The seats were surprisingly full for a morning show, especially since she wasn’t one of the big name draws. Not that she couldn’t be one of the big stars if she wanted, with her own Vegas theater and a show every night, but she’d have to settle down in one place for that and for now, at least, she was enjoying life on the road too much to stop.

“Lately I’ve been feeling rather nostalgic,” the raven-haired young woman announced to the audience, “so I thought that for my next trick I’d go with the all-time classic, pulling a rabbit out of my hat.”

She turned to the black silk top hat sitting upside down on what seemed to be a four-legged table beside her, picked up the hat, spun it in the air, placed it on her head at a jaunty angle while striking a saucy pose well in keeping with the fishnet hose she wore with her leotard and tailed formal jacket, then placed the hat back on the table. “And to show I still have it —” She reached into the hat and by the scruff of its neck pulled out ... a housecat.

She held the housecat at arm’s length and stared at it. “That’s not right,” she mused as titters ran through the audience. Shrugging, she put the cat back in the hat, and pulled out ... a turtle. The titters turned into scattered laughter.

“Okay, I’ve owned a cat before, but never a turtle,” Zatanna insisted. She put the turtle back in the hat, then picked up the hat and examined the inside of the brim. “Well, there’s the reason, it isn’t my hat, it’s Dad’s!” she exclaimed. “How did I end up with _his_ hat? Come to think of it, I wonder what else he has in here? Let’s see....”

She put the hat back down on the table and started hauling out object after object. “A pair of old shoes, soles need work ... a pair of unused tickets to a Yankees game — hey, that’s my birthday! No, literally, my birth day, not hard to figure out why they missed the game ... a reading lamp —” She pulled up the lamp, its stand as tall as she was and the base barely able to fit through the brim of the hat. Standing it up beside the table, she pushed the switch just under the light bulb and it lit up. “Hey, it still works after all these years!”

Turning back to the hat, she muttered, “Let’s see, car keys, a wallet, some swim trunks, an umbrella, a walking stick....”

Finally, she reached into a hat the audience could barely see for all the stuff piled up on the table ... and in ... and in, until she was bent over the table with her arm in the hat up to her armpit. “And ... hey, I think I found it!” Straightening, she pulled her arm out and held up ... a rabbit, grinning as the audience broke into applause. She bowed. “Thank you, thank, you. And for my last trick —” She turned to look sorrowfully at the cluttered table. “For my last trick, I’ll try to get all this junk back in the hat,” she said with a sigh to fresh laughter.

She had just put the rabbit back into the hat and was reaching for the lamp when _things_ made of living fire exploded through the theater’s walls and ceiling. Zatanna froze for a split-second as screams erupted from the audience ducking from the debris raining down on them, before breaking free of her shock and shouting out a backwards incantation of her _real_ magic, and her real inheritance from her father: “Srekcatta yortsed dna ecneidua tcetorp, esir sdniw!”

Instantly gale force winds swept through the huge room, blowing most of the still-falling debris away from the audience (now stampeding for the exits) and hammering into the flaming beings that were diving toward the stage. Most of the attackers were blown out like snuffed candles, but several had dropped low enough that the winds Zatanna commanded couldn’t bring their full force without endangering the fleeing audience as well, and Zatanna’s eyes widened and she took a step back as she realized she’d made a mistake — she hadn’t ordered the winds to protect _her_ as well.

The two that had been missed swept toward her, inches above the shrieking patrons, and it was Zatanna’s turn to shriek as their handless arms abruptly elongated forward to wrap around her and her jacket burst into flame.

“Semalf hsiugnitxe, tsrub sepip!” she shouted. All along the ceiling the piping for the fire suppression system broke, and streams of water — much more than the system would normally provide — whipped across the room to both splash across her, knocking her to the stage floor, and hammer like water cannon into the two fire-things holding her. They vanished in explosions of steam.

Zatanna staggered to her feet, soaked from head to foot and jacket charred, and groaned when the extinguished flame-things sprang back into existence, hovering above the seats, seeming to fill the theater. _So Air and Water didn’t permanently banish these things, let’s try Earth._

/\

Wonder Woman and the Martian Manhunter at Justice League headquarters, Batman (and coincidentally Batgirl) in Gotham, Hawkgirl in the Saharan desert, the Flash at Central City, even a group of flame warriors hanging over each of Earth’s poles ready to intercept Green Lantern if he returned from his sector patrol in time. And beyond the Justice League there were many others: the demon-hunting Sailor Senshi, the Phantom Stranger, Dr. Fate, Madame Xanadu, the Demon Etrigan, any that might detect and interfere with Trigon’s rise — all found themselves under siege, blindsided by the countless living flames that appeared out of nowhere.

And as he walked along the bottom of the bay toward Titans’ Island, Slade smirked, satisfaction percolating through his haze-filled mind. There would be no help for the Titans this day, all that remained was to collect his master’s prize and he would again have what was rightfully his.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And another look at the wider world, and why the Titans aren’t swamped by adult superheroes eager to do their part to save the world. That was one of the niggling little problems with the cartoon, of course, where were the adults? Sure, not having them busting in on most of the episodes made sense, they were spur-of-the-moment-type adventures. But in this case all the Titans knew what was coming weeks before the big blowout and I don’t care how proud they are, there’s no way Robin isn’t going to ask for help on this one.


	5. Suiting Up

Belldandy ignored her father’s secretary as she all but ran past him and through the door into Kami-sama’s office, only to slam to a stop as soon as she burst into the room. She stared around her, even the burning resentment at being pulled away from her family that she’d been fighting (she was a Goddess 1st Class, how could she be angry with her _father_?!) guttering out in her shock at the office’s transformation. Her father liked to redecorate on a regular basis, possibly even for every guest, so it had been different almost every time she’d visited — but it had never looked like this!

All the furniture had vanished, the walls’ often-cozy coloring replaced by pure faintly glowing white. Though now it was actually a single wall, the room reshaped into an immense round dome, and that single wall’s purity was broken by the black shapes of sigils and circles and Asgardian hieroglyphic writing. Glancing down at the floor, the earth-haired goddess found it to be the same as the dome, glowing white covered in black patterns. And like the diagrams on the dome, beyond sensing the mystical energy charging everything she couldn’t make heads or tails of what _any_ of the symbols and circles were for, it was all simply too complex and interrelated, each circle and line of code tying into multiple others.

“Daughter, thank you for coming so quickly, I know it was not easy for you.”

She looked up again to find the two people standing off to one side of the room that she’d missed in her shock — Kami-sama (in a white business suit this time) and the Daimakaicho of Niflheim (the latter currently an adult, rather than the disturbingly evil/cute child form she enjoyed so much when she wasn’t around Raven, and actually dressed modestly for the first time Belldandy could remember). The goddess quickly strode over to the pair. Fighting to hold her voice to its normal serene tone, she asked, “Father, why am I here? I know that you know best where I may serve, but I cannot help but feel that at such a time I should be with my family.”

“I know, child, you cannot be what you are and not feel as you do. I understand your anger. But I am afraid that you are needed here, for several purposes. Here.” He motioned toward a section of the floor.

Belldandy stepped over and examined the circle he had indicated, frowning slightly as she tried to puzzle out its purpose. It had a four foot radius, enough space for a single person, and her eyes traced the various symbols and hieroglyphs. That was the symbol for air, and that for water, and that for the Earth, and ... she gasped as she realized what she was seeing — a circle designed to freeze every living thing on Earth in stasis. Or at least, everything in the air and in or ... she double-checked the patterns around the glyph for water and yes, everything both in and on water. And it was all tied to her in her persona as the Norn of the Present. But she didn’t have the control to gather that kind of raw power, not when she was simultaneously connecting to so many living things, so _that_ meant ... Again she looked around and found the other two circles she’d expected, one for her father and one for Hild, both designed to feed her the power she needed.

“But father, this makes no sense,” she protested as she returned to studying the circle intended for her. “Why would you wish to put so much of life in stasis at such a time —” Then she located the trigger, and paled as fresh shock swept through her. The circle was keyed to activate when the Devourer claimed the Earth as his own. “Father, are you truly so certain Raven will fail?” she whispered, beginning to shake as images of her family flashed through her mind.

Kami-sama stepped over to her and laid a gentle hand on her shoulder. “There are degrees of failure, daughter,” he said softly, “and once this is over, if she survives Raven can do without the guilt of the deaths of all the many thousands that will be caught in flight or travel on the seas if Trigon comes.”

Belldandy considered her father’s words, and looked around with fresh eyes at all the _other_ diagrams and heiroglyphs that had nothing to do with the three circles she had just studied. Finally, she nodded. “You are right, Father, Raven should not have that added to the burdens she already carries.” She stepped into her circle, and with a soaring burst of wordless song the lines and symbols lit up, shining a soft blue. “I am ready.”

The other two stepped into their own circles, without a sound fresh glowing pure white and black intermingled with the blue light of Belldandy’s circle, and the three braced themselves, and waited.

/oOo\

The door to Raven’s sanctum slid open, and even with the tension filling the teens they still looked around curiously at the bookshelves full of books and ‘knickknacks’ (except for Starfire, of course, thanks to the many times she had meditated with her friend she was familiar with Raven’s bedroom). Not that they were tempted to touch anything, especially Cyborg and Beast Boy — _those_ two had learned their lesson after touching one of Raven’s mirrors and getting an impromptu personal tour of her fractured mind.

Still cuddled in the hovering Starfire’s arms, Raven weakly motioned toward an ornately carved wooden box on a shelf close to her bed, ignoring the unnaturally dim morning light visible through her window. “There,” she whispered.

Starfire floated over to the shelf, and Raven reached out and laid a shaking hand on top of the box’s lid. “Malfermu!” she chanted, fighting to keep her voice steady in spite of the tremors running through her body, and felt the box click open beneath her hand. She pushed open the lid and tried to scoop up the rings stored inside, the black crystal rings she’d found in Trigon’s temple that Skuld had returned to her just that morning, and snarled in frustration when her shaking hand scattered the rings across the floor. Her fractured Anger flashed through her for, rattling her shelves before she managed to force it back. When she was certain she was again in control, she whispered, “Robin, pick those up, pass them out. They’re safe.”

Robin hastily stooped to gather up the rings, and handed them out to his teammates.

Beast Boy held his up and examined it. “Dudette, I don’t do jewelry,” he said dubiously. “And this really isn’t the time.”

Raven surprised everyone (including herself) by giggling, and for just a moment felt her father’s call ease off before surging back. She whispered, “The rings are magical, they’ll protect you from my father’s influence. _Don’t_ wear them, they may not take pummeling well, or survive one of Starfire’s blasts. Keeping them in a pocket will work.”

Holding up the ring between the thumb and forefinger of one massive, robotic hand, Cyborg said, “Good thing, I don’t think it’ll fit on my finger.” He lifted his other hand and a panel popped open, revealing a small compartment. A moment later the ring was in the compartment and the panel snapped closed. “Will that do?”

Raven forced her eyes to focus on her Black teammate, shifting to mage sight, and jerked a nod at the sight of the new aura tainted with her father’s power that now surrounded the teenager. “It’s working.”

Robin and Beast Boy stuck their rings in pockets on their belts. Starfire’s costume tight, purple miniskirt didn’t come with pockets, but she solved that problem by shoving one hand under her equally purple sleeveless, midriff-baring top to push the ring down between her breasts. The alien princess turned around first where she floated in the air for privacy (not that she’d ever really understood the concept, but a few interesting events early on had at least taught her the rules even if she thought the whole fuss was silly), but she didn’t put Raven down and the half-demon both got a close-up eye-full of the entire process and had a cheek pressed against one generous orange-toned breast. From their grins when Starfire turned back around, the boys found the resulting furious blush from Raven’s hairline down her face and neck to disappear under her costume absolutely hilarious and her equally furious scowl didn’t phase them in the least.

Then the proximity alarm siren sounded, wiping away the grins like they’d never been, and the light set in the wall by the bed exploded as panic flashed through Raven.

Robin called out, “Starfire —”

“I am gone now!” she interrupted, and flew past the three boys and out the still-open door, as fast as the need to maneuver around corners and down stairs allowed. Before Raven had a chance to fight Fear back under control, Starfire flew into a room in the subbasement, and the last of Panic’s hold vanished as Ravens’s eyes widened in shock, her head swiveling to take in as much of the room as possible as Starfire circled the room to kill their momentum.

Except for a single view screen on one wall, the black floor, walls and ceiling were covered with white symbols, most of which she didn’t recognize. But from those symbols she _did_ recognize and the logic of the pattern, she realized that the focus of everything in the room was the circle in the center of the floor. The circle they were now hovering over.

Starfire tilted and without touching the floor lowered Raven down to lie in the middle of the circle. “Friend Raven, rest here. You will be safe while we deal with this destroyer of worlds.”

“Safe? And how will this keep me safe?” Raven demanded.

“You will see,” Starfire replied, and twisted to fly from the room.

As soon as the princess was clear the door closed. It, too, was covered with sigils, and as soon as it clicked shut Robin’s voice rang out over a hidden speaker: “ _Rondo aktivigu!_ ”

Nothing appeared to change but Raven gasped, going limp as she abruptly found herself alone in her head and body, the call from her father that she had been fighting since the sky went dark gone like it had never been.

The view screen lit up, showing Robin from the waist up, a control room in the background Raven didn’t recognize with Cyborg and Beast Boy behind him on both sides. A moment later the door behind them slid open and Starfire flew through. Robin asked, “Do you like our surprise? When we learned about Trigon I contacted the Batman. He made some calls of his own, and this is the result — so long as you’re in this room, Trigon can’t touch you. Now let’s see what’s coming.”

Her teammates vanished from the screen to reveal an underwater scene, from what Raven guessed was one of the cameras set up on the bottom of the bay surrounding Titan’s Tower. The water was murky, but not so much that she couldn’t recognize the figure shambling straight toward her — the blue-and-black costume over chain mail, the one-eyed full face mask, split vertically between orange and black. Slade was back. She supposed she shouldn’t be surprised that her father had granted him the ability to survive without air, but did have to wonder why he was walking instead of flying. He had when he’d shown up on her birthday, after all, when she’d tried to run away. At least he was alone. Then he was past the camera, and the view changed to show the edge of the island. A few moments later Slade’s head broke through the water. He shambled up onto the shore, strode forward several yards toward the tower, and stopped. He waited, standing in the same bent and slump-shouldered posture he’d had since his return from the dead.

Second after second ticked by, until finally Robin’s voice again came over the hidden speaker: “ _Let’s go see what the man has to say._ ”

“ _Do not worry, friend Raven, Slade shall not touch you so long as we breathe!_ ”

Raven’s breath hitched at her friend’s words. “Wait!” she called out, but no one answered. She weakly pushed herself up and twisted to sit in a lotus position, still recovering from the physical assault of her father’s call, and stared at the screen. In less than a minute her friends came into view, lining up between Slade and the tower. Raven whispered, “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

/\

“Let’s go see what the man has to say,” Robin said, then allowed himself to be pushed to one side by the ever-excitable Tamaranean princess. As she delivered her own words of encouragement into the microphone, he glanced over at several video screens that he hadn’t considered sharing with Raven even for a moment: news feeds from around the world showing or reporting various heroes being attacked by the same flame creatures — including from Metropolis, and Las Vegas. That took care of Superman and Zatanna, and there’d been reporters in space and at a certain remote tower in Salem Robin was sure that he’d be seeing reports of attacks on the Justice League Watchtower and Dr. Fate’s sanctum, and London, and more.

There would be no help coming, they were on their own.

Still, there was nothing to say, and he forced himself to project the same confident air he always had during the team’s adventures as he led his friends up to the tower’s main entrance. Maybe, just maybe, someone would be able to shake loose from their attackers and find some way to bounce themselves hundreds — thousands — of miles to come to the rescue. Or maybe Slade had underestimated the teenagers, devoted so much of his resources to holding off adult heroes that the Titans would be able to handle what was left.

In front of the others, Robin allowed a grimace to cross his face. _Yeah, right, like_ Slade _would make a mistake that obvious. Still, we’ll be able to hold him off for awhile, hopefully long enough for him to make a mistake._ Then they were approaching the outside door, and he again put on the confident we-can-handle-anything air that he had always used to inspire his teammates and unnerve their foes. _Showtime_.


	6. Holding the Line

Robin strode out of the Titans Tower’s main entrance and stopped a few yard in front of Slade, snapping out his retractable short staves, his cape billowing slightly in the light morning breeze. He didn’t bother to glance over his shoulder, he knew what he’d see: Beast Boy and Cyborg flanking him on each side, Starfire hovering overhead with her fists glowing green with power. Instead, the Boy Wonder focused on their enemy.

Slade did not look good. Oh, his costume looked the same, if soaked with seawater: the same dark blue/black over chain mail, same full-face mask with a single eye vertically split between black and orange. Physically he seemed to fill out that costume as before. But however well-defined his musculature might be, the Titans’ most dangerous enemy exhibited none of the grace that had been so much a part of him before his presumed death. Instead he was slumped over, shoulders hunched — whatever had happened to him when Terra had shut down his last scheme in an explosion of rock and lava, it hadn’t been good.

_It doesn’t matter, he’s here,_ Robin thought grimly. He called out, “Slade, we’re ready for you!”

Slade seemed to hunch into himself even more than he already was. “Give me the girl!” he called back in the gravelly voice that had replaced his earlier smooth menace.

“No way!” Robin responded defiantly.

“You don’t really have a choice in the matter,” Slade replied, “I’m taking her.”

Beast Boy stepped up beside his leader. “Oh yeah? You and what army?” he shouted, then shrieked as the same upside-down tear drop-shaped flame demons that the Titans had seen attacking other heroes in video feeds from around the world sprang up out of the island’s bare, rocky ground to float in rank after rank.

From Robin’s other side Cyborg stepped up, shaking his head. “You just had ta ask, didn’t ya?”

For once Beast Boy ignored the jibe as they watched Slade stretch out a hand, palm up. “Attack!” the villain shouted, clenching his fist.

Robin didn’t wait, throwing himself forward to reach Slade before he could be cut off, staves hammering out in blow after blow. Slade staggered back under the assault, not even bothering to lift his arms, until Robin’s lifting side kick smashed into the villain’s jaw to knock him back — but not off his feet.

The Boy Wonder backed up, staring in shock as Slade’s legs bent back at the knees and his body stretched out to hang unsupported horizontally above the ground. Then Slade snapped back upright, arm outstretched, and from his clenched fist a blast of dark energy that Robin was too shocked to dodge blasted the Boy Wonder back to land in the center of a circle of the floating fire demons.

Jumping to his feet as the demons dove toward him, Robin swept his staves around to knock away demon after demon (relieved that he _could_ knock them away, he’d been worried that they’d be as insubstantial as the fire they seemed to be made from). But there were just too many. As he spun in place to knock aside the latest two to reach him, the tear-drop arms of a demon farther back stretched out impossibly fast to hammer into him, knocking him out of the circle of demons to send him bouncing and rolling along the rocky ground.

He let the momentum roll him to his feet and lifted his staves, bracing himself as the fiery demons swept toward him, only for them to scatter when demon after demon blew apart as Starfire’s thrown green energy blasts rained down from where she hovered thirty feet above the battleground As soon as she had the demons’ attention, she broke off the barrage to summon a massive ball of energy and hurl it down to explode in the middle of the survivors. The few remaining flew up to engage the alien princess, and Robin took advantage of the respite to glance around — just in time to see Beast Boy sail up to smash through one of the Tower’s upper windows.

Before the demons responsible for the green-skinned hero’s involuntary flight were able to follow up their success a blue-white blast from Cyborg’s sonic hand-cannon dug a trench along the ground to intersect them, blowing them apart. The massive half-metal teenager ran heavily into the hole in the enemy forces he’d just created to take a stand in front of the Tower’s entrance. “No one’s gettin’ in here!” he shouted, and pressed a large button that had popped up out of one arm. Two large power conduits snaked out of the Tower to attach themselves to the Black hero’s shoulders. More parts popped up out of Cyborg’s arms to combine with others extending from the front of the Tower to form a sonic cannon massive enough that he staggered under the weight.

Robin raced to join his teammate — or rather _behind_ his teammate — and grabbed his communicator from off his belt. “B.F.G., regroup!” he shouted into it as he turned to look back out across the island battlefield. To his relief, even as the muzzle of the cannon began to glow white with a piercing whine Starfire swept away the last of her attackers with green energy eyebeams then flew down to hover above her teammates. A moment later a green hawk flew down to transform into Beast Boy and drop the last couple of feet to the ground next to Robin.

Robin reached up to tap Cyborg on the shoulder. “All clear!” he shouted as he clapped his hands over his ears, the others following suit. Cyborg nodded, pointed the gun straight at Slade and the remnants of the fire demons the villain had summoned and pulled the trigger, and for a moment their vision went blue-white as thunder hammered their ears.

Then the world was silent except for the ringing in their ears, and the four teens strained to see through the dust cloud blowing away on the breeze. Finally, a single figure appeared in the thinning haze — Slade, standing in place. The only evidence of the attack was the way his head was cocked over to one side at an impossible angle. Then with a wet snap audible in their still-ringing ears his head snapped upright. He lifted his hands palms up, and the Titans’ jaws dropped as all the flame demons they had snuffed out — or entirely new ones, which didn’t matter — rose from the ground in undiminished ranks.

_He’s playing with us_ , Robin thought, heart sinking. Still, maybe Slade’s overconfidence (please, let it be overconfidence!) would give them the time help needed to arrive or the break the Titans needed to win. “Attack!” the Boy Wonder shouted, his tone as firm, as confident as ever, and once again charged at Slade.

/\

Urd stepped out of the temporary portal from the suburb of Asgard where she and her co-mothers made their home, followed by Lind.

The Divine/Demonic hybrid looked to both sides as soon as she stepped through, and nodded in satisfaction at what she saw: the serried ranks of the Valkyrie and Furies that hadn’t been told off for guard duty in the suburb she and Lind had just left, the Valkyrie to her left and her Furies to the right. And in front of the first rank, in the gap between the two groups was Skuld, dressed in her full combat body suit with power strips hanging back from each shoulder. She was crouched down on her heels with her datapad floating in front of her, projecting its virtual keyboard and screen.

As the portal disappeared behind her and Lind walked over for a quick consultation with the Valkyrie that had held temporary command of the combined warriors, Urd stepped over beside her sister and asked, “How’s it going, Squirt?”

Without looking up, Skuld answered, “It’s started.”

“It has?” Urd turned and looked out west across Jump City towards the bay and Titans Tower. The bay was visible from their position halfway up one of the mountains that surrounded the city on north, east and south, and that position had been chosen so they could see the small island between the skyscrapers that made up the city center. She could see tiny flecks of red darting around the island, and hummed a quick ‘spell’ to sharpen her eyesight, then frowned as she watched the fight taking place. _No Raven._ But Slade was there, and from the pattern it looked like the rest of the Titans were guarding the Tower rather than trying to break past the Elementals they were fighting. Her adopted daughter must be safely tucked away inside the Tower.

_Smart move_ , she thought with ungrudging admiration. She and her co-mothers had watched the Titans over the past four years, of course, through the surveillance gem Skuld had convinced Raven to wear — right in the center of her forehead. And of all the Titans, it had been Robin that had impressed Urd the most — the weakest of the Titans in raw power but with unmatched discipline and training, the Mind of the team as Starfire was the Heart, and with an unshakeable determination that reminded Urd of Ranma before his/her death.

_Please, let Raven have that same determination now!_ Urd thought in a brief but heartfelt prayer, then looked down at her little sister. “Any word from Father and Mother?” she asked.

Skuld shook her head. “No, nothing.”

Urd refocused on the island and growled. Her orders were clear, the combined forces of Asgard and Niflheim were not to interfere until given the signal from one of the two ultimate authorities. Urd didn’t understand why they had to wait, but those were her orders. _I just hope Father and Mom know what they’re doing,_ she thought grimly as she watched Beast Boy get launched into the upper floor of the Tower.

/oOo\

Nabiki hit her desktop computer’s ‘return’ key, then leaned back in her _very_ comfortable office chair and rubbed at tired eyes before straightening to again focus on her monitor, and ... “Yes!” she exclaimed, falling back into her chair again. Not that there’d been much doubt, but quirky things _had_ happened in the past. Still, her latest day trade had just paid for her odd family’s next vacation.

_So now let’s shut it down and join the family,_ she thought. It felt good to be able to do that — a big change from the early days, when thanks to the hours of the different exchanges she played with and the needs of more cash _now_ she’d been putting in eighteen hours shifts. Nabiki smiled fondly as she remembered the times when only Kasumi’s mothering had prevented her from working herself into physical collapse, and how her older sister had finally insisted that she work no more than twelve hours in a single day. She never relented, not even when Nabiki was having a bad run and the two of them and Nodoka were eating nothing but noodles and they were using cloth diapers for the babies so they could buy enough baby food and pay the rent — she had simply said that money was tight enough that the last thing they needed was to add hospital bills to their stack.

But it had been over a decade since things had been that desperate, and by now Nabiki had enough salted away in various investments that day trading was just a way to have fun and occasionally fund a special occasion — like Haruka’s upcoming birthday. Unlike Kasumi, Nabiki didn’t really mind their adopted daughter’s love of racing, but it did mean that birthday presents had gotten _expensive._ Sometimes she thought that that was one Western tradition they could have done without, but they’d made the mistake of starting it when Haruka and Michiru were young and having the yen that made it possible was something to celebrate, and had never gotten out of the habit. _Still,_ she thought, _the time she spends practicing at the track under her umpteenth-great-grandmother’s watchful eye plus the time Michiru spends at the school practicing her with the rest of her quartet equals more ‘alone’ time for me and Kasumi_. With two teenage girls that was always a plus. Come to think of it, Nodoka was currently out as well, visiting one of her favorite restaurants. (It was the type of restaurant where the atmosphere was both formal and traditional on the part of both the employees and patrons, and so no one else in the household really cared for the place — not even Kasumi or Michiru most of the time, though it made a useful threat to bring Haruka to heel sometimes.) Nabiki and Kasumi had the house to themselves for hours.

Lost in her happy thoughts, Nabiki didn’t hear the sound of someone running down the hall toward her home office so when the door slammed open it was a complete surprise. She jerked upright in her chair and twisted toward the doorway, then yelped as the maneuver tilted her in _just_ the wrong way and she found herself headed for the floor, her head bouncing off the desk on her way down.

“Owww.” She glared up at Kasumi from where she lay on the carpet, rubbing the back of her head. “Kasumi, what is you prob —” She broke off her building rant as she finally took in her normally calm and controlled sister’s excitement ... and fear.

“Nabiki, something’s happening to the sky!” Kasumi reported breathlessly.

Nabiki glanced up at her home office’s window then at the clock, her eyes going wide. Kasumi was right, the light coming in through that window _was_ unusually dim for the hour, and oddly tinted. And she’d been so caught up in her day trading she hadn’t even noticed. Jumping up and rushing to the window, she stared up at the sky — dim with not even stars showing. It wasn’t clouds, there were only a few. She whirled from the window and grabbed Kasumi’s arm to pull her toward the doorway. “Come on, let’s see if anyone’s saying anything on TV!”

It only took the two a few moments to reach their family room and turn on the huge projector TV Nabiki had had installed several years before. Nabiki grabbed the remote to bring it up, for something like this practically any regular channel should do, with normal programming preempted by news ... and she felt her mouth go dry at the images of multiple attacks on heroes by the same flame-like creatures. And all over the world, the feed was scrolling through images from multiple cities in the United States, London, Cairo, even Tokyo; the heroes under assault were as famous as Superman (worldwide) and the Sailor Senshi (in Japan) to heroes so obscure that they couldn’t be identified. But nothing from Jump City, and the Titans. (All the adults in the household knew who Raven was, of course — Nabiki had guessed the first time she saw news reports of the newly-formed teen superhero team, and Belldandy had reluctantly confirmed it when she visited on Raven’s next birthday.) Still, even the absence of anything from Jump City was less than comforting; it depended on how clever Raven’s ‘father’ was playing things....

“I think this could be it,” Nabiki said. “But so what? Ranma never lost when it mattered, and neither will Raven.” She was surprised to realize her voice was shaking. But not _too_ surprised, because Ranma _had_ lost once when it mattered — on the day he died in more ways than one.

Kasumi sighed and slipped an arm around her sister’s waist, then leaned over to gently kiss her on the cheek. “It doesn’t matter,” she murmured comfortingly. “Even if she does lose, if there’s anything that the disaster eighteen years ago and Belldandy’s visits since has taught us it’s that there’s more than just this life. If the worst happens we will all still be together, reunited with our lost ones. And thanks to your hard work, those eighteen years have been very good ones, indeed. Thank you.”

“Hey, don’t sell yourself short, it was a group effort,” Nabiki replied. “I may have been the one that paid for everything, but you were the one that made us a home. If anyone’s responsible for those years it’s you.” Even as she kept her eyes fixed on the chaos the TV was projecting, she slipped her own arm around Kasumi’s waist and rested her head on her sister’s shoulder. Love you, big sis.”

“Love you, little sis.”

/oOo\

From where she was hovering in her meditative lotus position in the middle of the circle of protection in Titans Tower’s deepest basement, Raven’s shoulders slumped as she watched the massive screen on one wall. All the ranks of the fiery elementals that the Titans had annihilated had sprung back to life ... or been replaced, it didn’t really matter which. Either way Slade was toying with her friends, sending just enough of the things to give the Titans a hard fight but not overwhelm them.

And the help that Robin had promised was on the way hadn’t arrived. It wasn’t _going_ to arrive ... and even if it did, Slade would simply summon even more of the flame demons. Or when he got tired of playing with his enemies of four years. It didn’t matter, sooner or later the Titans would tire or Slade would grow impatient, and her friends would die. And then Slade would break into the Tower, find her and break the circle that was protecting her from her ‘father’s’ call, and when she was again helpless as she fought that call he’d haul her down to the temple beneath abandoned library. And once there her own resistance would eventually — inevitably — fail and Trigon would come. It would all be for naught.

_No._

She rose high enough to still be hovering as she unfolded from the lotus. Once straightened out she closed her eyes and crossed her arms as she gathered her power until she felt as if she was burning and stretching from the inside out, then with a shout flung her arms wide. A wave of black energy exploded away from her to smash through the room, and the magical protection the circle had created shivered, then shattered and vanished as if it had never been.

With the shattering of the circle she felt her ‘father’s’ presence again wash into her, only this time she opened herself up to it, letting it fill her like never before — and instantly fell out of the air to land on her knees, vomiting up the pizza she had eaten with her friends as Trigon’s influence seemed to permeate every fiber of her being. Finally she forced herself to her feet and wiped her mouth on the back of one form-fitting sleeve, then turned to stride for the door — she didn’t trust her ability to teleport, not in a room designed to keep the source of her power out. As she walked she did her best to ignore the tremors running through her body, and the slimy, vile, _evil_ feel of that power caressing, seeping into her soul — as horrible as anything Rothgan had done to her, only it was _all through her_. But as badly as she wanted to fight that power, to reject the kinship she recognized in its touch, she was going to need it to deal with her friends.


	7. Cusp Point

Robin was panting as his short staves knocked another pair of fire demons away. He spun in place, his mid-cape flaring out behind him, and knocked away a third with a spinning side kick to the ‘head’ that he’d have never dared try with a human opponent (or sentient, for that matter), then dropped to fists and toes and as another demon’s explosively stretching arms flashed through where he had been standing. Rolling to one side he dodged another set of hammering arms, then kipped to his feet and braced himself as crossed staves blocked a third set.

As he spun in place looking for the next attack he caught a glimpse of Slade, standing back at the edge of the water and watching the scrum. The Boy Wonder had never made it to their old enemy when the fighting resumed, cut off by attacking demons, and he wasn’t going to — there were more demons than the first round, and _this_ time they were springing up as quickly as the Titans could obliterate them. No, there would be no help from his teammates, giving him the opening he needed to go for Slade. They had their own problems.

 _Not that it would matter_ , Robin thought as he spun away from yet another charging demon, _not after the way he just took everything I could hit him with and shrugged it off. It’ll take all of us acting at once to hurt him, and we aren’t getting the breathing space to organize it._ No, all they could do at this point was keep the demons away from the Tower and buy time for reinforcements.

Then time ran out as Robin sensed more than heard the Tower’s door swish open.

He knocked aside the two closest demons and was just turning toward the Tower when the world abruptly darkened even as the ground shifted under him. Unable to keep on his feet, he fell backward only to find himself lifting into the air inside a translucent black sphere. His heart sank as he instantly realized who had to be behind it.

The Boy Wonder stood up and braced himself on the sphere’s curved surface, lifting his staves at the sight of a mob of the fire demons flying at him, only for his world to go black-red as the demons smashed into the sphere and exploded. His shoulder slumped with relief ... whatever was going on with Raven, she hadn’t completely gone over to the Dark Side.

As his vision cleared, Robin looked around to find the other Titans also inside their own black spheres, floating toward him. Beast Boy was lying limp on the bottom of his, apparently unconscious, but both Cyborg and Starfire’s spheres were lighting up as they uselessly blasted away at their prisons — there would be no help from that quarter.

Finally, Robin looked over at the entrance. As he’d feared, his gray-skinned teammate was floating there, her face cast in shadow by her raised dark blue hood, hands outstretched as she brought the four spheres together. A moment later the spheres collided, their walls vanishing where they touched, and the now-single large sphere with all four Titans inside lowered, the bottom flattening against the ground so it became a dome.

Robin knelt by his green-skinned younger teammate, and found what he’d expected — Beast Boy was unconscious, but not apparently seriously hurt. Glancing up at Cyborg and Starfire still blasting away at the dome’s wall he shouted over the explosions and loud whine of Cyborg’s sonic cannon: “Stop!”

The two stopped and turned to stare at their leader. Starfire hesitantly said, “But friend Raven needs —”

Robin cut her off. “You aren’t making a dent, save it for later when we’ll need it.” Then he looked back toward the Tower to find Raven floating toward them. Nowhe could see under the hood, and he froze at the sight of _four_ eyes, all glowing a solid red.

Starfire gasped as she followed Robin’s shocked gaze, then stepped toward their teammate and flattened one hand against the side of the dome. “Friend Raven?” she asked, voice shaking.

Raven ignored the alien princess to gaze down at Beast Boy. “Apologize for me when he wakes up,” she said. Her voice was rough, almost a growl, like a hunting beast. “He’s the only one of you that could break out of the spheres — changing into an elephant would have shattered it.” She looked up. “I’ve made arrangements with my mothers. Whatever happens, you four will be safe.” She paused for a long moment, her four glowing red eyes staring into the two eyes of her only real female age-mate friend, dark green on light green shimmering with unshed tears, then stepped forward to flatten one hand against the outside of the dome’s wall, covering where Starfire’s hand rested. “All I wanted was to make this last day perfect. Instead, you spent it worrying about me — _fighting_ for me. I am _not_ allowing you to die for me, not when it would be a useless death.” She paused for a moment before continuing, voice soft, “I know it will be hard but please, be happy.”

“How touching.” The Titans turned at the sound of the gravelly voice to stare at Slade, standing off to one side with the fire demons again in ranks behind him. He ignored the four trapped Titans to focus on Raven, “So you have finally accepted your destiny.”

Raven turned away from the dome and lifted higher, flying slowly toward the mainland. “Come on, slave, let’s get this over with.”

“Slave? I’m not the one with four eyes at the moment,” Slade replied. When Raven didn’t respond he shrugged, then lifted off the ground and flew up to join her, the fire demons trailing behind.

Starfire shouted, “Friend Raven!” When her friend didn’t answer she stepped back and raised both fists, green fire coruscating around them, only to pause when Robin stepped up beside here to place a hand on her shoulder.

“Wait,” he ordered.

“But Robin —” Starfire started to protest, only for him to cut her off again.

“The dome’s too strong. Save your strength, wait until Raven reaches the city. Maybe distance will weaken it.”

Starfire stared longingly after their departing friend, but finally nodded reluctantly and stepped back. “I will wait.”

Cyborg stepped over beside them, also staring at the backs of the fire demons shrinking with distance. “What d’you think she meant about ‘arrangements’ and ‘mothers’?” he asked.

Robin shrugged. “I don’t know, and hopefully we won’t have to find out.” He turned and walked over to Beast Boy. Kneeling, he lifted his teammate’s limp body by the shoulders and dragged him to the side of the dome away from the bay. He looked up to watch as Raven, Slade and the fire demons were lost among the buildings along Jump City’s docks. “Okay, fire away,” he ordered.

/\

In her place just in front of the first rank of her Furies, Urd was beginning to tremble slightly as she fought her need to _move_. How she moved almost didn’t matter — more than anything she wanted to intervene in the fight on Titans Island between her daughter’s friends and the Devourer’s summoned elementals that she was watching from across the city and partway up one of the bordering mountains, but even pacing would have helped. But she couldn’t do that, either, if she did she’d instantly lose sight of the battle. The minor spell she’d used to sharpen her eyesight didn’t enable her to see through buildings, if she moved she’d be cut off. Besides, having the commander of half of the warriors gathered on that mountain pacing back and forth pulling her hair out wouldn’t exactly do wonders for those warriors’ morale.

“She’s on the move!”

Urd whirled around to stare over her youngest sister’s head where Skuld crouched just in front of and between the two armies. Beyond the two, standing in front of the ranks of the Valkyrie, Lind had also turned toward them. Urd had been a little repulsed, even angered by her co-mother’s calm, but when their eyes met for a moment she saw the fear and frustration burning in them and felt a stab of shame as she realized the Valkyrie was having as hard a time of it as she was. Then the two co-mothers simultaneously hurried over to join the Norn of the Future.

“What do you mean, she’s on the move?” Urd demanded. She had been impressed when she’d seen the sigils and circles in the Titans Tower’s safe room through Raven’s bindi. Urd had found it hard to believe that mortals could actually create a ritual strong enough to block the Devourer’s link to her daughter, but they had — so long as Raven stayed within its bounds.

“Just what I said, she’d moving!” Skuld repeated. Her face was scrunched up in a way that made Urd’s heart stop — that expression _always_ meant something was going wrong — and the youngest Norn’s fingers were flying across the virtual keyboard. “I can’t tell where, though, something’s interfering with the signal. Visual and tracking is out, all I’m getting are audio and vital signs.”

“What!” Urd dropped to one knee beside her sister to stare at the holographic screen. Not that that did her any good, to her the lines of symbols streaming down the screen were so much gibberish even if she recognized each and every one. She had some knowledge of the workings of Yggrdasil, Asgard’s central computer, but would admit (occasionally, when she’d had too much sake) that Skuld badly outclassed her.

Lind spoke up. “Raven just left the tower.”

“What!” This time it was both sisters shouting, and Skuld and Urd bounced to their feet. Urd reactivated her farsight spell and stared toward the Tower. “No,” she whispered at the sight of her daughter’s black spheres trapping the other Titans.

Skuld finished pulling on a pair of high-tech goggles and took one look toward the Tower, then dropped to her knees to grab the datapad from where it was still bobbing from being knocked to one side and hit a few keys, turning on the external speakers and turning up the volume so they could hear Raven’s voice. “— _will be hard, but please, be happy_.”

Urd heart froze. _She’s given up_. She ignored Slade’s hated voice and her daughter’s reply as her mind raced. “Skuld, the link is still open to Kami-sama and Hild?”

Skuld tapped a few more keys, waited for the result, and nodded. “Yes, it is.”

“Both ways?”

“Yeah.”

Urd stared down at Raven now flying across the bay toward the city, Slade flying beside her and the fire elementals following. _What are Father and Mom_ waiting _for?_ she thought desperately. Surely if they were following Skuld’s data feed they’d know their adopted granddaughter had failed, and Urd and Lind’s combined force were perfectly situated to intervene, to stop Raven before she could be consumed in the ritual that opened the portal for the Devourer.

 _They’re up to something. I don’t know what, but they_ must _be_. Well, _Kami-sama_ must be up to something. If there was one thing Urd had learned about her mother in the four years since she’d become commander of the Furies and _de facto_ Heir Apparent of Niflheim, it was that Hild was not ... reasonable ... when it came to Raven — the mix of love, guilt and self-loathing Hild felt when she thought too much about her granddaughter’s situation made ‘reasonableness’ impossible. Besides, while Hild came up with schemes as easily as breathing that made marble cakes look simple, Urd was beginning to think that when it came to _long_ -term planning Kami-sama trumped her. No, if there was a deep, hidden plan involving Raven it was her grandfather’s, not her grandmother’s. Though Hild must have agreed to go along with it or she’d already have charged to the rescue.

Urd looked toward Lind to find her looking her way again. The two co-mothers exchanged worried glances before looking back toward their daughter just in time to see her vanish, lost from view among the city buildings. But Urd knew where she was headed, the temple to her ‘father’ beneath the abandoned library.

She gritted her teeth as she fought the temptation to ignore her orders and lead her Furies to her daughter’s rescue, to Niflheim with whatever her father was planning! _I don’t care how powerful or all-knowing or clever he is, Father had_ better _know what he’s doing or I will make him regret it!_ Somehow....

/\

There were times when Raven was barely aware of how fragmented her mind was, how much those fragments of her emotions had taken on lives of their own, or how dependent she was on them to really _feel_ anything — especially when a single strong emotion predominated. Now was not one of those times. As she walked down the long spiral stone stairway underneath the abandoned library, a column of fire elementals behind her and Slade at her side, she could feel those fragments in her mind jostling for position and dominance. The slimy sensation of her ‘father’s’ power crawling though her bringing out Disgust. Anger, Despair, Guilt, Loathing at her weakness and what she was going to do. Determination to match that of her friends as she felt the pull of the power she’d ‘borrowed’ from her ‘father’ as it reinforced the dome they were hammering at, where she had left them trapped back at the Tower. Love and Gratitude, again for her friends along with her mothers, her grandmother and grandfather, her aunts, that had given her so much happiness in her short second life, so much more than she deserved, and forgave her so easily in advance for what she was going to do. Longing, for the life she was about to surrender.

And Curiosity. Raven again glanced out of the corner of her eye at the tall man beside her. At least, he _looked_ like a man, though she’d had her doubts since his reappearance several weeks earlier and what she was seeing now confirmed her suspicions. She had thought at first that the only change from the additional two eyes that had manifested when she accepted her ‘father’s’ call was the temporary double-vision until she adjusted, but now she realized that she could see her ‘father’s’ power like crackling black strands snaking around her old enemy. And while those coruscating ribbons covered Slade from head to foot — almost certainly responsible for his unnatural toughness and flight — they weren’t evenly distributed. The strands that wrapped more thickly around his hands had to be the source of the blasts of tainted power he had been throwing around, but that didn’t explain the additional strands wrapping about his head ... and sunk into his temples through the mask covering his head.

But whatever havoc those strands might be playing with Slade’s ability to think they hadn’t interfered with his powers of perception, and he’d noticed her attention. He rumbled, “The chamber has been prepared for you. Everything is ready for Trigon’s ascent.”

 _So let’s see what happens if I poke at him a little._ “You’re a fool,” she replied. “Whatever he promised, he won’t deliver.” Raven’s four eyes widened slightly as she saw the strands of power snaking into Slade’s temple suddenly pulse.

But whatever effect that pulsing had, there was no outward sign — Slade merely shrugged. He calmly said, “Dear child, you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You think I don’t know my own father?” She didn’t, of course, except through the anger and hatred that had bubbled beneath the surface of her mind for as long as she could remember, ever since she had recognized it for what it was. But Slade shouldn’t know that.

But he merely shrugged again. “You are merely the portal. An insignificant pawn in Trigon’s game.”

Now that anger wasn’t just bubbling away, it was rising to the surface — filling her with hatred and the desire to _hurt_. Slade always did bring out the worst in her. But though it was hard, she managed to keep her voice level. As they reached to bottom of the circling stone stairway where it branched out into multiple corridors, she replied, “Then I guess we have that in common. And once he gets what he wants, you’ll be insignificant, too.”

 _Now_ she’d touched a nerve, and Slade whirled toward her, grabbing her by the throat and lifting her off her feet as he shouted, “Shut your mouth!”

Even as Raven tensed to react the fire elementals following behind them were in motion, the first ranks grabbing their erstwhile leader and slamming him against the wall of the corridor hard enough to crack the stone.

The shock of the impact forced Slade’s hand open, and as Raven dropped to her knees, hacking for breath, he ignored the smoke rising from where the flaming arms pinning him to the wall circled chest and arms as he struggled against their grip. He shouted, “Get off me! Do as I command!”

Raven forced herself to her feet, four glowing red eyes narrowing in satisfaction. She purred, “Come to think of it, Slade, you’re already insignificant. Not even your own army will listen to you.” She turned away from the now irrelevant man-thing and strode down the corridor toward which her ‘father’s’ will pulled her. “Leave him,” she called over her shoulder. She heard the sound of Slade hitting the floor, and seconds later the heat of the front ranks of the fire elementals as they caught up and fell into rank behind her.

/\

Slade watched from where he’d fallen as Raven walked away. He quickly lost sight of her as the fire demons that had released him followed her, but stayed down on the floor as the rest of the elementals followed, ignoring their former commander as they followed their new one. Finally the last of the fiery automatons passed overhead, and Slade pushed himself to his feet and turned toward another of the corridors branching from the base of the stairwell. If his part was done, he had one last meeting. It was time to collect what he’d been promised. “ _Whatever he promised, he won’t deliver. And once he gets what he wants, you’ll be insignificant, too_.” For a moment it was as if Raven was beside him, repeating her first words to him on the stairwell. then for a split second it seemed as if the world around him grew, shrank, grew again, the fog that seemed to fill his mind thinned, then again thickened. The villain shook his head as the world returned to normal and continued to stride down the corridor, the words forgotten.

It took less than a minute to reach his destination, a small chapel — or what had passed for a chapel for the cult that had originally created the temple, carved out of the bedrock, the walls rough-hewn and with only bare floor and a single ornately carved altar standing in front of where Trigon’s jagged blood-red sigil was etched into the back wall. At least the altar was too small for a human sacrifice.

Slade stopped in front of the altar and waited impatiently, until less than a minute later the sigil vanished, replaced by four huge flaming red eyes. He waited for several more seconds, but when nothing else happened he finally spoke: “The portal approaches. The hour is near. It’s time for my payment.”

Now a voice filled the chapel, so deep that the sound seemed to resonate through Slade’s very bones. “Payment? For what? The gem returns of her own free will. _You_ did not deliver her.”

Slade tensed at the dismissiveness that permeated that statement. He ground out, “We had a deal! I held up my part of the bargain.”

His only reply was loud, contemptuous laughter that shook the chapel. “ _And once he gets what he wants, you’ll be insignificant, too._ ” Something deep inside Slade’s mind seemed to snap, his knees hit the floor with a loud clack of armor as he clutched at his head, and suddenly the fog clouding his mind evaporated and he could see clearly, think clearly for the first time since Terra, his second apprentice, had turned against him and destroyed him, and Trigon had made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. Yes, he could see clearly, everything he had done — and the consequences of those actions.

Slade jerked to his feet, screaming as he gathered black fire in his hands to hurl fireball after fireball at the red eyes behind the altar, continuing even as they exploded uselessly against the wall’s rock.

Then ribbons of the same black fire snaked from those fiery eyes to encircle his arms and legs, lifting him off the ground and pulling him out spread-eagled. As he struggled against his bonds Trigon’s voice again filled the chapel: “I granted you these powers, and I can take them away!” Instantly the power that had filled Slade since he had accepted his master’s offer flowed away, leaving him limp and weak, and his world vanished in a blaze of pure white light.

/\

Raven walked down the by now all-too-familiar corridor, feeling her muscles tightening with every step until she could barely walk. The increasing difficulty she was having maintaining the dome imprisoning her friends wasn’t making things easier — each blow and blast from Robin, Cyborg and Starfire were sending shockwaves through her mind, and that combined with the ever-increasing pull of her ‘father’s’ call was making it almost impossible to think. In the end only blind Determination to end this while her friends were still safe — and Pride’s demand that she actually _walk_ to her final destination instead of crawl (flight was a distant memory) — was able to push her the last few steps into the temple’s central chamber.

And there she hit her limits — two steps into the chamber, and her leg muscles finally locked up, spilling her to the floor to curl up into a ball of pure pain. _Not that it matters_ , she thought, staring along the floor of the room. Even if she hadn’t collapsed there was no way she could have climbed the stairway spiraling around the huge column that dominated the center of the chamber, that her ‘father’s’ call was demanding she take.

But it was a distant thought, at this point it was taking almost everything she had to keep her friends restrained.

Her vision filled with black-and-red flames as of one of her ‘father’s’ elementals came to ground in front of her, jostling her shivering body as it slid its arms underneath her, lifting her off the floor. Where Slade had burned when the things had restrained him, to Raven the embrace felt almost comforting, the flames dancing along one cheek cool like the soft breeze that sometimes blew through the Titans’ favorite city park.

Then she was lifting, the elemental flying her up to the top of the column. There, it gently lowered her to the flat, round top, in the center of the jagged, angular lines of the mystical circle she had seen the first time she’d been in the chamber, when Slade had lured her there on her birthday. Its task done, the elemental flew over the edge and vanished from sight as it dropped toward the floor.

For a long minute nothing happened, and then she felt invisible bonds circle her wrists and ankles. She bit her lip to keep back a shriek of pain as she was lifted up and her muscle-knotted limbs were yanked outward to spread-eagle her. For just a moment her control over the Titans’ prison faltered, and she squeezed her eyes shut and focused everything she had to shore it up again — they were _not_ charging to a useless rescue, to only helplessly watch her ending and the world with her, before Trigon killed them.

Even as her control of the distant dome steadied a new pain ripped through her, radiating from the center of her abdomen. Raven opened her eyes and looked down (ignoring the blood from where she’d bitten through her lip running down her chin and spattering her costume over her breasts), but couldn’t see anything, so she fought to ignore it as she lifted her head and glanced around as best she could, her four eyes widening at what she saw.

The fire elementals that had accompanied her had taken up positions around the curved wall of the chamber, and more were filing in through the entranceway she’d used. The newcomers were joining their predecessors against the wall, taking positions above the firstcomers. New sigils were revealed carved into the walls, sigils that had been lost in the darkness or hidden from normal sight during her last two visits but were now revealed in the flickering light of the elementals’ fire — more sigils coming to light as the newest fire elementals took positions ever higher. Then there were no more fire elementals pouring into the chamber. She watched as the last that she could see took their positions along the wall, and braced herself for whatever came next.

What came next was every elemental slamming itself backward, splashing against the wall. The entire room went blindingly red for brief seconds, before fading to show a complete absence of fiery things, but the sigils glowing red as the slimy feel of her ‘father’s’ power still crawling through her was joined by the same across her face, her hands, her legs, every bit of exposed skin. From there it seeped underneath her costume, spreading across her thighs, stomach, up along her arms and down her neck and chest to coat her breasts until there wasn’t a single inch of her body not quivering with disgust at the sensation.

But her moment of disgust was brief, within seconds the fiery red sigils flared and she threw her head back and _shrieked_ as the pain centered in her abdomen went incandescent ... and began to expand, spreading down across her thighs and crotch, up into her chest. _Somehow_ , she managed to maintain her friends’ prison even as her screams filled the room, before she fought herself into silence and forced open her eyes, and ... was the chamber growing brighter? She glanced down to find a ball of expanding near-blinding white, swallowing more and more of her body as it grew and brought that incandescent pain with it, as if her body was being shredded, disintegrating ... consumed from the center out. _That’s probably exactly what’s happening_ , she managed to think through the pain.

She again felt her hold on the dome at Titans’ Island falter and squeezed her eyes shut. Ignoring the pain as best she could, she completely gave herself over to Determination even as that pain spread down her legs, up her chest, breasts, neck, down her arms as it crossed her eyes to cover her head and her brain seemed to catch fire. Whatever happened to her, Her. Friends. Would. LIVE!

Then the line of white heat spread across her hands to the tips of her fingers, down her ankles and across her feet, and there was nothing but PAIN, until her world went white and vanished.


	8. After the End

Starfire was growing increasingly desperate. She had lost track of how long she and her half-machine friend Cyborg had been hammering at the translucent black dome in which Raven had imprisoned them, along with Robin and an unconscious Beast Boy, but it had been too long.

Twice she and Cyborg had been able to blow holes in the dome. The first time had caught them by surprise, and the hole had sealed itself before they could react. The second time Robin had been ready and thrown himself through before the hole closed, but Cyborg and Starfire hadn’t been fast enough to follow him. Their leader had decided not to wait to search for Raven, ordering them to follow him when the opportunity arose, but Starfire’s hope that there _would_ be an opportunity was slowly dying — and with it the strength of her emotion-reinforced energy blasts — and she could feel tears streaking her cheeks as she continued to blast away.

And then their time ran out. Through the shimmering dark energy of the dome, over the tops of the roofs of the buildings along the docks of the bay, she saw stone and earth fountain into the air. From underneath them, an immense dark red-skinned, barrel-chested form with flowing white hair rose above those buildings — Trigon had arrived. He threw back his antlered, white-haired, four-eyed head and roared into the sky, “The Earth is mine!”

Even as he roared out his challenge, a wave of red energy exploded out from his towering form, flashing around the buildings and over the bay. The dome vanished under that tide and for a moment Starfire’s sight went crimson even as she felt a burst of white-hot pain explode between her breasts.

When she could see again she found herself on her knees, gasping for breath, her every muscle quivering from the aftershocks from that blast of pain. She forced herself to her feet and froze, eyes going wide at the sight of the changed world around her. Though waves still lapped at the shore of their tiny island, where before had been grass and sand was now only stone. Their headquarters, too, had changed from glass and steel to that same solid rock. When she looked across the bay at Jump City she saw the same blast landscape, with Trigon’s giant demonic form dominating it, his triumphant laughter seeming to shake the ground even at that distance.

“Raven, no,” she whispered, then turned as Cyborg stepped up beside her to bury her face against his steel shoulder and wept.

“Woah, dudes, what’d I miss?”

Starfire stiffened at the sound of Best Boy’s voice, then whirled to find the younger boy sitting up and rubbing at his chest. “Beast Boy, you are awaked!” she caroled, before sweeping him up in a hug and whirling around.

“Uh, yeah, I am.” Her teammate struggled in her embrace until she relented and put him down (and let him remove his face from her cleavage, her enthusiastic aim had been a little low). A furiously blushing Beast Boy pushed himself away and looked around. “Wow, who decided to change the landscaping? What happened?” he asked again.

“We lost,” Cyborg said bluntly, pointing across the bay to where the red-skinned, antlered giant was molding a stone throne out of an adjacent building to match his size.

Starfire followed Cyborg’s pointing to stare at the massive figure, and her expression firmed as she felt a bloody-minded determination fill her, a resolve to triumph or die in the attempt — a resolve she had not felt since she had escaped from her Gordanian slavers, and been saved from recapture by her now-teammates. The support of those teammates had allowed her a softness — a ‘weakness’ — that she could glory in and draw strength from because they had always had her back as she had had theirs, but now was not the time for it.

“No, we have not lost!” she stated firmly. “Robin would not give up, _will_ not give up, and we will not fail him. We will not fail Raven! She is alive and he is looking for her, and we will help.”

Her two teammates stared at her, before Cyborg gently said, “Star’, I wish you were right, but Raven’s gone — she has to be, or Trigon wouldn’t be here.”

“No, friend Cyborg, you are wrong,” Starfire insisted, turning to her friends. “Remember the dome she trapped us in. _She_ was the one who created it, whose power maintained it against all we could do — and it held even after Trigon rose. It didn’t fail until he claimed the Earth.”

Beast Boy glanced back and forth between the two, confused, but a suddenly hopeful Cyborg nodded. “You could be right,” he said thoughtfully. “So what do we do? What about the arrangements Raven told us about ... with her mothers, she said?”

Starfire looked back at their enemy. “We do not know what those arrangements are, or how long they will take,” she said. “So we attack. We distract him while Robin looks for Friend Raven. Her mothers will simply have to catch up with us.”

Beast Boy stared at the stone-faced alien in shock, then turned to also stare at Trigon. “You want us to attack _that_?” he demanded.

Cyborg stared as well, then shrugged. “Why not? He owes us.”

“Yes, my friend, indeed he does!” Starfire agreed, voice hard. “So let us collect. In full.” She rose off the ground, shifted around to grab him underneath his arms from behind, and lifted him to fly toward the city. He was _very_ heavy, even as strong as she was she would not be able to carry him far. But it would be far enough.

Left behind, Beast Boy stared after them, then glanced around at the blasted landscape and stone T-shaped shell that had been their home, shuddering — it looked just like what he saw whenever he delivered flowers to the cavern holding the stone figure that was all that was left of Terra after she maxed out her earth control powers saving Jump City. “Why not? It’s not like there’s much of a party going on here.” He shifted into a green eagle and flew after his departing teammates.

/oOo\

In her circle in Kami-sama’s office Belldandy waited, once more in the eternal Now. She didn’t bother counting how many times she had sought out that aspect of her dominion as Norn of the Present, when there was no past and no future, only Now, ticking over second by second. It was often a vital aspect of the most important of workings, when her own response needed to be instantaneous — and there was no working she had ever been a part of more important than this one.

That importance was probably the only reason why she’d actually been able to attain the Now — for the first time since she completed her training she had had to struggle to sink into that peace. But then, this was the first time that she had had to struggle with a fear that reached as deep into her heart as her love for Keiichi and their children, because it was an integral part of that love. It had perhaps been the hardest fight of her _very_ long life to ... not set aside that love/fear, never that, but accept it and let it cease to be the focus of her all as she waited for the Devourer’s coming.

And then between one instant and the next that moment was Now, and her circle flared into active life as the Devourer’s presence manifested.

Even as it was activating Belldandy instantly threw her all into the circle, pouring her strength into the need to freeze all life in the air and on or under the sea in its own eternal Now as the Devourer’s claim swept across it. Her own Now ticked over instant by instant, encompassing more and more of the Earth as the Devourer’s influence spread. She was stretching to her breaking point as she sorted through all the additional lives she was touching with each tick of her Now, determining which would need her touch, even as the weight of the world seemed to press in on her from all sides — and then her circle’s changed state registered with the adjoining circles of Hild and her Father and they activated, joining their strength to hers as the Devourer’s foul claim completed its sweep around the planet.

Then it was done, and the light running through the circles dimmed as they shifted to maintenance mode, keeping the newly-frozen lives in their stasis. Belldandy gasped with relief as the weight of the world faded. She could still feel some pressure from the uncountable multitude of newly-formed connections, a constant drain on her strength, but that burden was shared among the three of them and on her least of all. It was bearable. Though there was one additional link, oddly tainted by the Devourer’s presence from within rather than without....

“Well done, daughter, well done indeed,” Kami-sama complimented her as he strode from his circle to sweep her up in a hug.

In her shock she automatically returned the hug. Her Father normally wasn’t the most physically demonstrative of people ... if one’s name wasn’t Raven, at least. Then she thought of her mortal family, now so many stone statues in what had been a Tokyo city park, and her hug tightened as she clung to her father for comfort — now that she thought of it, Raven had needed comfort more often than most people, and at the moment so did she.

His arms tightened to meet her need for long moments, until Hild said from where she stood to one side, “As heartwarming as this all is, we need to get ready for the main event.” His embrace eased and Belldandy reluctantly let go. She turned to the Daimakaicho, choosing to ignore the slight snark to Hild’s voice — she suspected Hild had been playing her role for so long it had become second nature, and certainly the situation was desperate enough that Belldandy could forgive her for forgetting to drop it. Instead she simply asked, “The main event?”

“Indeed.” Hild grinned and theatrically lifted her arms wide, and this time Belldandy’s gasp was from awe as all the _other_ circles and sigils that she had forgotten began to come to life, lighting up with a mix of white and black, divine and infernal energies intertwined. The Norn of the Present turned in place, face alight with wonder as that admixture raced away from the three along floor and walls, circling around and up to meet high on the ceiling above them — before spearing straight down into the middle of the circle where she had just stood and pure white light exploded outward, light so intense that any mortal would have been instantly and permanently blinded, and even Belldandy’s eyes were overwhelmed.

When she could again see through bedazzled eyes, she found the circles the three had just occupied still dimly lit in standby mode. But now there were fresh, brightly glowing lines running from those circles in all directions, connecting them to the rest of the room’s massive array.

“And now,” Hild said, stepping back into her circle as Belldandy gaped, “find your niece’s life-light and prepare yourself to channel all that power back when the time comes.”

/oOo\

Urd closed her eyes as the scarlet wave of Devourer’s claim to the Earth flashed over her, then opened them on the newly transformed landscape, everything living now merged with the blasted bare rock that was all that was left, red skies and dark clouds above. She noted a stone bird nearby frozen in mid-flight and distantly wondered why it was hanging in the air, but her curiosity was only a tiny ember. Later, she knew, she was going to be angry with her Father — _very_ angry, more angry than she had ever been in her long life, even angrier than when Raven had begun remembering her year of continual serial rapes in Rothgan’s palace, and Urd’s hatred and despair at her inability to protect her daughter from those memories had pushed her into accepting her mother’s offer to join the Furies. Her oh-so-clever Father had failed her, failed her co-mothers, failed the world, but most importantly had failed her daughter. She didn’t know how, but someday, somehow, she would make him _pay_.

But that was for later. For now her overwhelming grief left no room for anger, and tears flowed down her cheeks as she watched the gigantic red form of the Devourer raise the column upon which her daughter had died from the ruins of his temple to shape into his new throne. Right now, she wished more than anything that the hand tightly clutching hers was her lover’s, as well as their co-mother’s.

Then seemingly out of nowhere, a massive green elephant appeared directly over the Devourer’s head. Urd gaped as the elephant dropped, missing the head proper but landing on one of the antlers and _snapping it off!_ The Devourer roared with fury as his broken antler dropped down out of sight into the ruins of his temple, the elephant following only to vanish as it fell. Beast Boy had undoubtedly changed into a fly or wasp, or some other miniscule insect. Even as he vanished, Starfire flew up from the transformed city, whipping past Trigon and throwing a massive green blast of energy into the monster’s ear as white blasts from Cyborg’s sonic cannon peppered his face around his eyes. Raven’s friends had arrived, and she and Lind had a final promise to their daughter to keep.

She squeezed Lind’s hand briefly in acknowledgement before letting go, and turned to her youngest sister. “Skuld, now that Raven’s gone, Lind and I ... Skuld?”

The Norn of the Future was still crouched on her heels, intently focused on her datapad’s projected screen as her fingers flew across the keyboard. She obviously hadn’t heard a word her big sister had said.

Urd stepped over next to her sister, keeping a wary eye on the battle taking place in the city below them. The Titans attacking the Devourer might be mere annoyances to someone of his power — the _actual_ Titans wouldn’t be a major threat — but they were proving to be very _annoying_ annoyances, enough so that he had given in to his anger and was physically trying to swat Starfire out of the sky instead of simply annihilating her mystically. _You go, guys._ Urd refocused on her sister and shouted, “Skuld!”

“Huh? What?” Skuld looked up and froze, eyes wide as she looked across the blasted landscape and focused on the raging Devourer, then looked back down at her datapad ... then up ... then down. Up again. “That’s not right!” she burst out.

“What? _What’s_ not right?” Urd demanded. They didn’t have time for this —

“He _can’t_ be here, Raven’s still alive!”

For a moment Urd’s world _stopped_ , and then she was dropping down next to Skuld so quickly that if she’d been mortal she’d have badly bruised knees. She was vaguely aware of Lind suddenly standing beside them, but all her focus was on her sister. “Are you sure? How do you know?”

Skuld’s fingers were again flying across her keyboard. “It’s Raven’s bindi, it’s still active and it’s powered by Raven’s life force — if she was dead, it would be on standby, powered by the emergency battery.”

Urd sagged, going lightheaded as fresh hope swept through her. She realized she was hyperventilating and forced herself to slow her breathing. She asked, “So where is she?”

“I don’t know,” Skuld replied, eyes still fixed to the screen. “Something’s interfering with the bindi’s signal. The best I can say is she’s somewhere below the Devourer’s temple. And the visual’s dark, I can’t tell if it’s because of the interference or just that dark wherever she is. I can’t even make sense of the emotional signal, it’s all scrambled.” She finally looked up. “That’s the best I can do, I’m sorry.”

Urd reached over to gently grip her sister’s shoulder. “That’s okay, Squirt, you told us Raven’s still alive, that’s the important thing.”

“He’s getting back on track.”

At Lind’s terse statement Urd and Skuld looked up to find her staring down at the city. Urd hastily rose, her own gaze following her co-mother’s, and her heart sank.

The Devourer was finally ignoring Cyborg and Starfire’s continuing attacks. His arms were stretched wide above his head, and the black swirling masses of three new portals were forming between his hands. If he was following his standard procedure, in a moment his own demonic forces would be flooding out of one portal and into the other two, targeting the divine and infernal realms of his newly-conquered world to keep their surprised occupants busy while he recovered his strength.

Lind asked, “Skuld, is the link to Kami-sama still open?”

Skuld quickly typed a few keys and briefly studied the result before nodding. “Yes, it is.”

 _So why isn’t Father_ doing _anything?_ Urd railed in her mind. She took a deep breath, watching as the predicted demons began flooding out of one portal and splitting into two streams into the other two, so many of them that all Urd could pick out were flashes of green and black wings.

A red stud on Skuld’s datapad began to blink. She quickly pressed it, and went white at the data that sprang up on her screen. She shouted, “Urd, Lind, they’re targeting your home!”

“Of course they are,” Lind said. “That was where Raven lived — and the Devourer’s connected to her.”

Urd thought that Lind sounded _way_ too calm even as she fought for the same calm herself. _Mara!_ And not all the demons had passed through the two exit portals before Trigon had shut them down, and suddenly the all-too-mortal Titans below were finding themselves on the defensive. Starfire was weaving about through the sky blasting away at the scores of green and black pterodactyl-like things chasing her as she dodged their own eye-blasts while Cyborg had set his back to a now-stone building’s wall and was firing his blasts of concentrated sound at anything that came close while trying to cover Starfire when he could. Urd couldn’t see Beast Boy in her brief glance before she looked over at Lind to find her co-mother gazing at her.

Urd said, “Forget Nifflheim, they’re either in bunkers with Furies guarding them or will have to look out for themselves. Take your Valkyrie home to back up our people already there, protect the mothers and children. We Furies will rescue the Titans.”

“We haven’t received any orders,” Lind pointed out.

“Do we need them? Defense of your realm and the innocent are your primary tasks, and we made Raven a promise — and we always keep our promises.” She ignored the irony of her statement as she stared at her co-mother. Normally it was the gods that were supposed to be concerned about the spirit of a promise and the demons sticking to the exact letter of their agreements, but she didn’t care.

Apparently neither did Lind. She smiled thinly. “True,” she said, then turned away, calling out to her lieutenants. In moments the Valkyrie were mounted on their fighting brooms and falling into column in front of the resummoned temporary portal.

 _I wonder just how much Father saw in advance_ , Urd thought as she reflected that the temporary portal went directly to the pocket dimension that held their home. After a moment she shrugged as she turned to her own ranks of Furies, their wings already springing from their shoulder blades. She would just have to hope that her Father had foreseen her own intervention as well. “You heard me, let’s go!” she called out. The next moment her own implanted wings swept out and she took to the air at the front of her flock to the thunder of hundreds of wings, and dove toward the monster that had claimed her world. She just _really_ hoped her Father knew what he was doing.

/oOo\

She was huddled on the rough, cold rock floor, trying to stay absolutely still. The Bad Man was somewhere out there in the pitch blackness that surrounded her, she could feel him — not only all around her, but inside her as well. But maybe if she didn’t move, didn’t so much as twitch, didn’t make a whisper of a sound, the Bad Man wouldn’t know where she was, wouldn’t catch her ... wouldn’t do Bad Things to her. She didn’t know just what those Bad Things would be, she didn’t _want_ to know, but somehow she knew that they would _hurt_ , inside and out. There were bits and pieces at the edges of her mind she was desperately trying to ignore, all hissing, yowling claws and slime and weight and _something_ stabbing her. And pain ... pain, and more pain.

She wanted her mommy, _any_ of her mommies: the red-haired woman that would tell him bedtime stories of his valiant ancestors, the platinum-blonde woman that would play games at the playground, the stern-faced purple-haired woman that smiled when she danced with her, the yellow-blonde woman that loved to sing — and all of them would hold her when she cried. She wanted her mommies.

She shivered from the cold then froze in place, a terrified whimper escaping before she could stop it. She bit down on a fisted hand to stop more whimpers and listened, straining to hear _anything_ that might hint that the Bad Man had heard her — nothing. Moving as quietly as she could, she wrapped her cape around herself and curled into a ball for warmth, and again went still as silent tears tracked down her face.

_Mommy...._


	9. Not So Last Stands

From her position in front of the armored, shielded entrance to the bunker holding the mother and children in the middle of what had been the local park, Mara pointed the staff she’d been handed by one of the Valkyrie, channeled her own god-strength through it and fired up at one of black-and-green demons that had flooded her home’s pocket-dimension through the Devourer’s temporary portal, and snarled in frustration as yet again she missed not only her target but all of the other invaders caught up in the aerial duel. Though at least she hadn’t hit any of the Valkyrie and Furies that the invaders were fighting. That was easier for the Valkyrie, they preferred distant attacks from to tips of their combat brooms’ handles during long strafing attacks. But the anger and need to _hurt_ that made the Furies what they were meant they preferred to mix it up close with their swords and as a result Mara had actually come closer to hitting several Furies than she had any of the invaders.

Mara fired again and missed again, her snarl growing louder. She hadn’t felt such hatred since she had switch sides to Asgard and replaced her lover as Norn of the Past, and lost the constant anger simmering away in the depths of her soul that had been part of her demonic heritage. But it had roared to life when she’d seen the portal open and the invaders flood through, and known that their presence had been made possible by her daughter’s death. And that hatred demanded its due in blood and pain.

Then she caught sight of a plummeting form, a Valkyrie knocked off his broom and falling limply to the ground — and two of the green/black invaders stooping to follow, crackling yellow beams lancing from their eyes.

This time her shot was close enough to cause them to break off their dive, remarkably close for a snap-shot taken as she ran forward to reach the Valkyrie moments after he hit. A quick glance at the unconscious god showed a body suit streaked with charring, reddened and blistered skin showing in a few places, but nothing that needed tending to immediately so she refocused on the sky. As she’d feared, the two she’d scared off were circling back around and dropping lower and no one else seemed to have noticed what was going on below. She _really_ hoped the Furies weren’t simply ignoring her predicament — Urd said that her people didn’t hold Mara’s switch against her, but she wondered —

The two invaders were lined up for their shallow dive, one slightly behind the other, wings spread wide and eyes beginning to glow, and Mara gritted her teeth as she stepped between them and the unconscious Valkyrie and braced herself. Her own combat suit was undamaged so it would provide better protection to them both, but that didn’t mean this wasn’t going to _hurt_ — maybe fatally.

Then someone grabbed her from behind and she abruptly found herself cartwheeling across the earth and grass of the battle-torn park. Rolling to a stop against a mound of grassy earth, Mara twisted to look back at the Valkyrie she had been defending ... and found Lind standing in her place, her combat broom floating beside her, her two angels manifested above her with their single wing each spread out to both sides.

The Valkyrie commander was holding the halberd that had become her favorite weapon, and Mara gaped as she stepped to one side and angled her halberd across her body so that its massive axe-blade caught the first invader’s eyebeam and sent it lancing back to spear lengthwise through the second one. Spear Mint had reached out a hand to intercept the second attacker’s eyebeam and it bounced off her palm to lance harmlessly upward as its source’s smoking corpse spiraled toward the ground. Then even as the first attacker angled up to pass overhead, well out of Lind and her angels’ reach, Cool Mint and Spear Mint spiraled back into Lind’s core and she _leaped_ straight up, swinging the halberd at practically full extension. The blade caught the creature at the base of its throat and the creature’s own momentum swept the blade down the length of its torso, showering Lind with viscera and purple blood as she dropped back to earth.

Mara fought down her gag reflex as she jumped to her feet and ran back to her co-mother to drop down next to the Valkyrie they’d been defending and after a moment of hurried checking breathed a sigh of relief — he was seared, but nothing life-threatening. “He’ll be all right,” she reported.

Lind glanced at her with a thin but grateful smile, then looked up. Mara followed her gaze, and smiled viciously at the sight of the suddenly _very_ one-sided dogfight. The Valkyrie reinforcements that had accompanied Lind were tearing into the invaders, and an increasing number of black and green bodies were dropping out of the sky. As hard as she tried, however much she reminded herself that she was a goddess now and not a demon, it had been only four years and Mara couldn’t keep herself from exulting as each invader fell — one more body to be piled on her daughter’s grave.

“Raven’s alive.”

For a moment the words didn’t register, then Mara’s head whipped around to stare at her co-mother.

Goddesses couldn’t lie. Actually, that wasn’t quite true, better said that goddesses at Lind’s level couldn’t lie, or they wouldn’t _be_ at her level. Oh, they could dissemble, misdirect, leave out important facts ... but not _lie_. And more important, _Lind_ wouldn’t lie, not about this, not to _her_.

“How?” she whispered. “I mean ...” Her voice trailed off and she waved toward the furball above them.

Lind’s thin smile softened. “I don’t know. Does it matter?”

“No! Of course not! I —” Mara’s voice broke off as her throat tightened and she realized her cheeks were wet. _Now I’m crying?_

Lind looked up for a moment, searching the sky, then stepped forward and embraced Mara, a hand pulling her co-mother’s head down against her shoulder. Mara ignored the blood and fluids smearing onto her bodysuit and skin as she clutched at her friend and sobbed out her relief. Cool Mint and Spear Mint again manifested, untainted by the gore coating their mistress, this time to circle their arms about Mara’s back and sing wordless songs of happiness.

Eventually Mara’s tears eased off, and she pulled back out of their embrace and wiped at a now-bloodstained cheek as she smiled up at the two angels. “I can’t wait to get my own angel as wonderful as you two.” The two angels grinned and sang a trilling two-toned giggling harmony before vanishing back into their mistress.

Mara giggled as well, before glancing down at herself with a sigh. “I’m a mess,” she muttered as she tried to find a spot on her combat suit clean enough to wipe her filthy hands, then looked over Lind’s blood-drenched body from tear-streaked face to foot. “ _You’re_ a mess,” she continued. “We need to get cleaned up.”

Lind shook her head, smiling ruefully. “I’m afraid I have a job to do, one that I’ve ignored for too long already.”

“Oh?” Mara looked up at an aerial battle that, even to her inexperienced eye, was no longer a battle but now a hunt as the combined Furies and Valkyries ran down the last of the invaders. She refocused on Lind and cocked an eyebrow (a mannerism she’d picked up from Raven, and that their daughter had herself picked up while watching Nabiki in her mirror). “When this is over we’re going to be meeting Raven. Is _that_ how you want to look — and smell — when that happens?”

Lind looked down at her filthy combat bodysuit, then ran her hands through blood-smeared hair and grimaced. “I shouldn’t —” she reluctantly began, only to be interrupted.

“Go ahead, Commander, we’ve got this in hand. Mara’s right, you’re in no shape to meet your little girl. I’ll see to our casualties and get us reorganized for any counterstrike.”

The two turned to find another Valkyrie dismounting from her combat broom, the winged Fury in command of Nifflheim’s forces present landing beside her. Lind considered the two for a moment, then put a finger to her ear. “Skuld, how are things going down there?” She listened for a minute, then said, “Good enough. If the Devourer is willing to let things stand at a stalemate down there, we’ll let it be — it’s not like we can take him down ourselves and if I bring my people back all it’s likely to do is convince him to bring in more forces, maybe another invasion force targeting somewhere else in Asgard now that this one’s history. But if he brings in more of his minions or Urd’s people start getting overwhelmed let me know right away and we’ll come running if we can.”

Turning to the Fury, she asked, “Janet, how’s the situation with the invaders in Nifflheim?”

Janet shrugged. “At last report so far there haven’t been any serious attempts on the bunkers, and assuming they don’t uncork anything that they haven’t used so far, they can’t mount one. They’re just tearing up real estate and a number of idiots or paranoiacs that refused to take refuge in the prepared bunkers are finding their time as demons cut short. We actually owe them our thanks for that, some very nasty customers are going to find themselves joining the mortal souls they enjoyed tormenting _in_ the fires instead of stoking them, so to speak. So we’re good.”

“Let me know immediately if they, ah ... ‘uncork’ anything more serious, then take your Furies to Nifflheim. We’ll replace you here. I’d send some of my people with you, but —”

“We have orders from Hild that you stay out,” Janet finished. “I understand why, the idiots and paranoiacs that aren’t in the bunkers are the ones most likely to think they can get away with taking a potshot at your people. Like I said, we’re good. Go get yourself clean.”

“Thank you.” As Janet leapt into the air with a beat of her wings and flew up toward those of her people still incorporate after the battle, Lind turned to her lieutenant. “Myrun, if the Devourer _does_ make a move I can get into a spare combat suit in less than a minute. Respond immediately and I’ll be right behind you.”

“You got it, Commander.”

Lind nodded her acknowledgement and turned toward their home as Myrun hopped back on her combat broom and sped away. She winced at the sight of pillars of smoke rising over the trees along the edge of the park. The invaders hadn’t deliberately targeted the homes scattered throughout the pocket dimension, but they hadn’t particularly cared what got in the way of any of their eyebeams that missed their targets. Neither had the Valkyrie, for that matter. “Come on, Mara,” she said with a sigh. “If our home’s still standing we can get our showers.” She took her co-mother by the arm and began walking toward their home, her combat broom following along beside her.

As they walked, Lind said quietly, “And Mara? Thank you.”

“For what?” Mara asked, confused.

“For standing in front of one of my wounded people, ready to take a hit that might have killed you but would have almost certainly killed _him_.”

“But I didn’t do anything, you shoved me out of the way,” Mara protested.

Lind shrugged. “Of course I did, I have the skills needed to protect Orlygr without taking the hit. It doesn’t matter — you were willing. You may not have a Valkyrie’s fighting spirit or skills, but once word spreads there won’t be a Valkyrie that doubts your courage or heart. From today onward, if any other Asgardian maligns you within the hearing of a Valkyrie, there will be ... words.”

Mara felt her eyes growing damp again, and hastily wiped them. While she had been _safer_ as a goddess than a demon, not having to continually watch her back, that wasn’t the same as being _accepted_. Certainly Urd’s sisters had accepted her unreservedly and Lind had never doubted her, but that attitude had been far from universal — not all those that switched sides _stayed_ switched, and the fact that Urd had rejoined her mother at the same time and that they remained lovers had just fueled the rumors. Now this ... “You’re welcome. And thank _you_ ,” she replied, voice husky with emotion.

/oOo\

Robin groaned as he rolled over, trying to focus as he once more became aware of the world around him. The last thing he remembered was ... riding his motorbike? Yes, he’d escaped from the energy dome Raven had imprisoned her teammates in, made it across the bay to the docks on the Titans’ ferry raft, had retrieved his motorbike from their vehicle storage there and headed for the abandoned library, and ... Robin shot to his feet as he remembered Trigon’s massive form bursting up, and the red wave of energy that had flashed out from that demon — and the pain exploding through his head just as quickly dropped him to his knees, hands clutching at his hair as the world again washed away.

The pain finally subsided, and the Boy Wonder realized that the world beyond his pounding head and ringing ears was ... rather noisy. The sounds of Cyborg’s sonic cannon and Starfire’s energy blasts were distinctive and with Starfire there were inevitably explosions, and the inhuman shouts and screams were to be expected, considering what kind of minions an entity like Trigon would have — but far too many of the shouts and some of the screams were entirely too human.

Moving slowly this time, Robin rose to his feet and looked up, trying to focus on the mass of lights and colors swirling above him. His inability to force his star-spangled vision into clarity was worrying, he didn’t have _time_ for a serious concussion! Then he realized that one of those fuzzy images was growing larger as it dropped toward him. He fell into a barely adequate defensive stance as a woman with ebony wings to match her hair carrying a sword that crackled with power landed a few yards away from him — well out of his currently shaky reach. He suspected that she’d be an attractive woman if he wasn’t seeing double.

The double-imaged woman tapped at her right ear. “Urd, Sandra here. I found Robin. He looks shaky, but he’s up. We’re on the ground at three o’clock, two blocks. Over.”

Less than a minute later another woman spiraled down to land by the first, platinum blonde wings that matched her hair. Robin _thought_ she could probably be described as sultry, even in double overlapping images. She was wearing a full body suit like the first, though the newcomer’s suit came with two long strips of cloth hanging off her shoulders. She took one look at Robin, then stepped forward and caught him as he started to tilt. She glanced to one side and shook her head ruefully, then stared intently into his eyes for a moment before holding up one hand and asking, “How many fingers?”

“Uh ...” Robin tried to focus. “Dividing by two, I’d say three.”

The newcomer — Urd, Robin presumed — chuckled. “Yup, major concussion. Didn’t your mentor teach you not to ride your bike without a helmet?”

“It was lost in a fight and hasn’t been replaced yet, and I was in a hurry.”

“And look where that got you,” Urd replied as she oddly twisted the hand that wasn’t propping Robin up. A ceramic-appearing bottle appeared in the hand, a clear cup upside down on top of it.

Off to one side with her eyes on the sky, Sandra snorted. “You’re one to talk,” she snarked.

“Now Sandra, be nice, you’ve only heard stories. It’s been many years since I’ve been that stupid.” Urd handed the bottle to her. “I have sky watch, half a glass.”

Sandra reached up to drop her sword into the sheath on her back between her wings and filled the glass halfway with a thick purple fluid. “And what stories they are!” she enthused as she handed the glass to Urd and redrew her sword. “I have sky watch.”

“You all shouldn’t believe everything Mara tells you.”

“And what about the Daimakaicho?”

“ _Especially_ the Daimakaicho, you know how much she enjoys embarrassing me. Besides, hers are mostly from when I was a child. Who isn’t an idiot at that age?” Urd held the half-full glass up in front of Robin’s eyes. “Robin, this little pick-me-up will make that concussion go away and give you so much energy that you’ll be bouncing off the walls, more than you already do. Just be close to a bed twelve hours from now, because when you crash you are going to _crash_.”

Robin nodded, winced at the pain the motion sent bouncing around inside his skull, and reached for the glass only for Urd to pull it out of his reach. “Nu-uh, not the way your hand’s shaking,” she said. “Open wide.” She held the glass up to his mouth and poured the contents down his throat as soon as his lips parted.

It was foul ... _really_ foul, indescribably foul, like nothing he’d ever tasted or smelled before and hoped never to taste or smell again. It was all he could do not to choke or gag on the aftertaste, and then it was as if a hot water balloon burst in his stomach, its contents exploding through his body. He wouldn’t have been surprised later to learn he’d had steam coming out of his ears like a Warner Brothers cartoon. But behind that rush of wet heat his pain vanished, his vision snapped into focus, he felt like he was bursting with a need to _move_ , his mind was clear — and he abruptly realized that he had just drunk who-knew-what offered to him by a complete stranger.

He instantly shook off the hand on his shoulder and stepped back. “Who _are_ you?” he demanded.

Urd grinned. “Good to see you’re thinking again. We’re the Furies, and I’m Urd, one of Raven’s mothers.”

Robin eyed her, then looked up and around, everything now crystal clear and his mind racing. He caught sight of Starfire flashing through the black and green pterodactyl-like things and past a gigantic roaring Trigon, her green energy blasts marching across his massive red-skinned chest. Her attack was massively more powerful than he had ever seen, to the point that the explosions were actually leaving small craters and blue-green blood was oozing down Trigon’s chest and abdomen (Robin thought that the massive bracers covering her entire forearms that he had never seen before were probably behind the power-up). She soared away, dodging yellow beams flashing from his own eyes, followed by a pair of literal wingwomen with the same glowing, crackling swords as Sandra in hand on each side of her and slightly behind to form a small aerial ‘V’. Several of the leathery demons dropped toward the alien princess, only to scatter as the one in the lead was slammed to one side by Cyborg’s screeching blue-white sonic blast.

The Boy Wonder glanced over at the platinum blonde beside him and asked, “Beast Boy?”

Urd gave him a thin smile. “After he flew into the Devourer’s ear canal and turned into a small whale, he got the monster’s _personal_ attention. So we asked him to guard Cyborg — while _we_ guard them both.”

“ _I’ve made arrangements with my mothers._ ” A fragment of Raven’s last words to her friends echoed through Robin’s mind. Trigon’s presence was _supposed_ to mean that Raven was gone, consumed in his summoning, but the woman beside him had to know that and she was _way_ too calm. If she _was_ one of Raven’s mothers ... a tightness in his chest that had been there since he’d looked around with clear eyes at the rocky, blasted landscape the world had become finally eased and it was suddenly easier to breathe. He said, “Raven’s alive.”

Urd’s smile broadened. “Very good, Boy Wonder, yes, she is. And you —”

“Incoming!”

Robin and Urd glanced up then dove apart as a green and black winged _something_ smashed down where they had been standing. Robin rolled across the rocky ground and to his feet, right next to ... his motorbike? Well, the stone statue that _had been_ his bike, standing upright and of one piece with the rocky ground that had been paved road — what Urd had glanced at when she’d first seen his condition, he realized. He glanced over at the stone car that the _thing_ had smashed down next to, now liberally splashed with the _thing_ ’s purple blood and gore — no surprise, it had been eviscerated, a dead body falling out of the air instead of an attack. It was the same stone car that Robin must have catapulted into head first when the world — including his motorcycle — had turned to stone and he hadn’t. He had gotten off lightly with a major concussion. _Right, first thing after this is over, get a new helmet and_ always _wear it._ The Batman was right yet again.

Urd stood up and dusted herself off as she glanced up at the furball above them. “As I was saying, you need to go find her. We know she’s somewhere below in the Devourer’s temple, but not exactly where. And I can’t go myself, the Devourer can almost certainly track me or any of my Furies anywhere I go. I doubt he knows she’s alive, so let’s _not_ change that.”

Robin nodded his agreement. He briefly considered grabbing Beast Boy, but rejected the thought — Gar’s ability to turn into, say, a fly would make searching the temple much easier, but he could _not_ remember to keep quiet when reporting, not consistently. Best not to chance it. “Don’t worry, I’ll find her,” he said instead.

Urd offered her hand and when Robin reached toward it clasped forearms.

“Thank you, we’ve missed her,” she said quietly, then let go and she and Sandra spread their wings sprang into the air to rejoin the fight.

Robin watched them rejoin the dogfight, Sandra drawing her sword and almost casually cutting off one low-flying _thing_ ’s wing as their flight path intersected it from the rear. He lost track of the pair in the furball, and returned most of his attention to the ground as he shifted over next to the calcified building beside the road and stalked alongside it, slowly to avoid drawing the wrong kind of attention from above but with one eye on the sky in case he failed. Trigon bursting up through the abandoned library had made a mess of things, but the entrance had been _this_ way....

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I missed _another_ day of writing, and this time I can’t blame being sick or the holidays. Nope, this time it was a book I stumbled across and spent practically all day Saturday reading, finishing up just short of midnight. For anyone that enjoys “time traveler fixes the past” variety of sci fi/fantasy and owns a Kindle, you might want to check out _Custer at the Alamo_ by Gregory Urbach for $2.99 at Amazon. He’s a self-published author like my best friend, but IMHO his writing is definitely at a professional level—certainly better than Robert Conroy. There are a few typos, though remarkably few for even the best self-publisher, and some things that might stretch believability: Urbach uses the mystical route for explaining how Custer and the chunk of the 7th Cavalry that he led to their deaths at the Little Bighorn end up in Texas in 1836 instead, for instance, and Custer is perhaps a bit quick to accept his faults (though dreaming of how your arrogance got you, one of your brothers, and some good friends killed might be enough of an explanation). There’s one or two other things. Still, the word is that Urbach is writing a sequel and I sure hope so.


	10. Odd Companions

The large, burly black humanlike shape that Trethgar preferred moved surprisingly quietly through the section of Nifflheim given over to the most powerful of the demons. Not Demon Lords, there was no such thing — there was the Daimakaicho, and there was everyone else serving at her pleasure. Except perhaps for her daughter, who she apparently doted on, and once Urd had proven that her ascension to head of the Furies wasn’t just nepotism Hild’s position had become stronger than ever. Now anyone that wanted to overthrow the Daimakaicho had to go through Urd first if they didn’t want to have to deal with her after, and so far Urd had shown no interest in the position herself. Though it was very early days yet, only four years.

But even if there were no Demon Lords that didn’t mean that all pigs were equal, though that inequality could come out in surprising ways. True, some demons were simply more powerful than others, but raw power did not necessarily translate into respect. After all, Mara had been a Demon 1st Class before her defection, but had gotten almost no respect at all — most demons had assumed that Hild kept her around for her entertainment value as a court jester. No, even more than power what demons respected was ruthlessness.

Of course, every so often a rumor would sweep through Nifflheim that it was _Hild_ that had gone soft, and there would be another revolt. Trethgar found it rather ironic, because it had been millennia since he had figured out the truth that Hild had never gone soft, because she had never been _hard_ — not the way the rebels meant, what the mortals meant by ‘evil’. But what the rebels always missed was that just because Hild wasn’t ‘hard’ didn’t mean she wasn’t _ruthless_ , and so they inevitably thought she had lost her edge and become easy pickings. Trethgar himself had never been tempted to revolt precisely because he _did_ understand the difference. Well, that and because whenever there was a revolt he got to _really_ indulge in his favorite activity, _hurting_ people, long and lovingly. Not that he didn’t have plenty of opportunities to indulge himself outside of revolts — like now.

Trethgar quietly slipped through a massive hole that had been blown in the massive gold-threaded black marble of an estate wall. He kept one eye on the sky for any of the invaders that had created that hole, but when he didn’t see any sign that the green-black things were returning for another strafing run he looked over the estate for the hellhounds (and hell-whatever) that normally guarded the grounds. He smiled grimly at the lack of guardians and the still-smoking craters scattered throughout the landscape. There was even an occasional bit of green or red mist here and there, where the ‘corpses’ of those guardians were fading away, their energies returning to the massive reservoir from which they came, ready to be reconstituted into new forms — Rothgan preferred the less durable but more easily controlled constructs to actual creatures with minds of their own, and Hild had called it once again. There would be additional defenders inside the mansion, but not many and not as strong as those the invaders had cleared away for him. And while Trethgar would have to dig Rothgan out of his own personal bunker, that would be no trouble with the toys Hild had loaned him. Rothgan himself wouldn’t be any challenge at all because the ruthless weren’t the only ones to gain power and prestige, there were also the bottomfeeders — those that gained their influence through offering a service. And Rothgan was _definitely_ a bottomfeeder, his influence in the unofficial hierarchy the result of the women he hung up in their niches until they accepted their guilt and moved on, that until then he could loan out like so many party favors when he wasn’t raping them himself.

No, this was going to be no challenge at all. But it _was_ going to be fun.

/\

He’d been right, it had been no challenge at all. The mystical defenses that locked and guarded the entrance to Rothgan’s personal bunker in the depths of his mansion would have been strong enough to give even Hild pause — _if_ the lockbreaker she’d given him hadn’t been specifically attuned to those defenses. As it was, they’d been as effective as wet tissue paper. Now Trethgar had shifted into his combat form, even larger and more hulking than before with the addition of horns, fangs and claws — _long, sharp_ claws. Those claws were the reason he’d made the shift (it certainly hadn’t been because of the pitiful resistance Trethgar had put up) and one hand was buried in the greasy gut of his shrieking prey as he hauled him through the mansion’s corridors, the crimson flaky-skinned demon leaving a trail of slime, blood and fluids as the masses of tentacles he used for arms writhed in pain. (In the beginning of the trip Rothgan had used those tentacles to grab onto columns and statuary to try and slow his progress, but that had only resulted in those claws being ripped _out_ of his body, as excruciatingly painful as when they’d stabbed _in_ — and then just having those claws used to cut off a tentacle and stabbed _in_ again to even more pain before resuming the journey.)

Of course Trethgar could have indulged himself in the bunker he had yanked Rothgan out of. But the walk through the mansion to the bunker had taken him naturally through the ‘viewing hall’ lined with niches holding the ‘trophies’ Rothgan liked to show off to visitors — one broken, fluid-encrusted, naked woman with haunted eyes after another — and it had given him an idea. _This_ time he was going to perform for an audience.

He reached the ‘viewing hall’ again and dragged his prize down to the middle to a sudden chorus of gasps. He unclenched his claws and let Rothgan drop to the marble floor before turning to take in the women of all skin tones and hair color in the niches. “Good morning, ladies,” he rumbled in the closest approximation he could manage in his combat form to a conversational tone. “Your master made the mistake of offending some _very_ important demons, and I thought you might like to watch the results of that little mistake.”

Vicious grins slowly began to blossom on the faces around him as his words sank in. One African woman (almost certainly a new arrival that hadn’t been quite broken yet) found the courage to stammer out, “D-D-D-Does this mean w-w-we’re free?” Faces brightened all around at the thought, only to fall (into tears in some cases) when Trethgar shook his head, the horns on each side barely clearing the walls (he’d had to go through doorways sideways a few times, and duck through constantly).

“No, ladies,” he replied cheerfully, “you are here for punishment, and punishment you will receive. You’ll be assigned to a new master.” Until they learned their lesson and moved on, but he didn’t mention that. It would actually interfere with their progress, and Hild would be angry with him — and his current assignment was a _fine_ example of what could happen to people that got on Hild’s bad side. “But that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy the moment.” He bared his fangs at a whimpering Rothgan as he reached out one long black claw. With Trethgar’s millennia of practice and Rothgan’s massive bulk, the raping pimpmaster was going to last a _long_ time. As the first long, shallow slice gaped red to an accompanying shriek of pain like music to his ears, Trethgar idly wondered if Rothgan would end his first mortal life hanging on his successor’s wall — considering the predilections he’d exhibited as a demon, it seemed likely. And _that_ would probably make Urd _very_ happy, if she ever found out. It certainly would Hild.

/oOo\

Holding the handle of his swingline, Robin landed crouching at the bottom of what had been the circular stairwell carved out of stone, now shaken by Trigon’s explosive rise with great chunks broken away and the floor at the bottom covered in debris. The same stairwell that he and the other Titans had found below the abandoned library weeks before on Raven’s birthday, guided by a resurrected Slade.

Robin had been back once since, to search the catacombs. He’d been alone; Raven was the only one likely to be able to find things he couldn’t and he’d had no intention of bringing her back ever again. But without her he hadn’t found anything but empty rooms, strange carvings, and the undisturbed dust of long abandonment. He’d taken comfort in that dust since it meant that, Slade’s appearance during their visit notwithstanding, at least it wasn’t being used — wherever their enemies might come from, it wouldn’t be from there. He hadn’t imagined that the resurrected Slade could _fly_.

Glancing up along the swingline to where it disappeared into the dim shadows above, Robin decided to leave it where it was. There was always the possibility that he’d miss catching the grapple if he released it without retracting the line into its handle, and if he _did_ retract the line as it dropped the handle’s tiny engine made a slight but distinct whirring sound — and even with the noise of the aerial battle going on above drifting down it was _very_ quiet at the bottom of the shaft. He would just have to hope that no one came across it.

“Hello, Robin.”

The Boy Wonder whirled at the rough, gravelly voice behind him, the voice that still weirded him out as much now as it had the first time he’d heard it. He dropped into a defensive stance at the sight of the figure in the darkness of one of the entranceways. “Slade,” he ground out.

The villain stepped out of the deeper shadows, and Robin tightened even further. Slade was ... different. He was no longer slightly hunched over, his step was surer, without the lumbering quality it had had during their last few encounters. He was once again the smooth, silent predator the Titans had first encountered.

But all of that just meant that Slade was even more dangerous than before, and with his new powers he’d already been powerful enough to take on the entire team.

Slade noted his minute shift in stance and stepped back. “I’m not here to fight, I’m actually here to help.”

“Yeah, right,” Robin replied, his tone filled with tightly controlled anger. “After what you did, do you really expect me to believe you?”

“I had my reasons, as I do now to offer my help. You are looking for Raven.”

Robin froze for a split-second before he forced himself to relax, but knew that had been a split-second too long. Still ... “Raven’s dead, and you helped kill her,” he said flatly.

Slade chuckled. “We both know she’s alive. What I know and you don’t is where she is. Without my help you’ll never reach her.”

Robin stared at the Titan’s arch-nemesis as he struggled to come up with some other option, but finally straightened with a sigh (though careful to keep himself ready). “All right, it’s your game. But this doesn’t mean I trust you, I’ll be watching.”

“I would expect nothing less. Follow me.” Slade turned away and strode back into the dark hallway he’d come out of. Robin sighed again as he pulled out his flashlight and followed, tracking the flashlight’s beam to all sides to look for any possible traps.

It took less than ten minutes of walking for Robin to realize they were in unfamiliar territory, and that the complex was _much_ larger than his earlier solo reconnaissance had indicated. The dark made it difficult to be sure, but he thought that the last time he’d visited the corridor they were walking down had ended in a T-intersection five minutes back instead of a four-way. But he’d be _damned_ if he would ask Slade where they were. Then he didn’t need to ask, as the corridor abruptly widened out, the ceiling rising, to reveal two huge doors. In his flashlight’s beam they appeared to be gold-plated (they _couldn’t_ be solid gold, could they?) and embossed with Trigon’s leering visage.

Slade positioned himself to push against the left-side door. He said, “Both doors need to open at the same time.”

Robin nodded and moved to the right side-door. Moments later the doors slowly swung open, and the two were bathed in soft red light. Robin stepped through the door and gaped at the sight — they were standing on a shelf at the top of a deep, wide crevice, with a pathway leading down along the crevice’s cliff-face to a narrow beach and a short dock with a boat. But what shook Robin was where the light was coming from, because except for that narrow beach the bottom of the crevice was filled with lava. There were a number of spires of what appeared to be rock sticking up out the river’s surface but couldn’t be, not _in the middle of a river of lava that shouldn’t be running right underneath the city!_

Robin shook himself and put away his flashlight before following Slade down the pathway to the beach. _If I didn’t have Raven for a teammate, I might think Batman has a point about magic._

/\

When the tear-drop darkfire demons that Robin and the other Titans had fought outside Titans’ Tower began rising up out of the river of lava, Robin wasn’t at all surprised. Things had been going too well — no attack while Robin and Slade made their way along the path down the side of the crevice to the beach, no attack when they launched the boat at the dock there, no attack for the first fifteen minutes as they poled against the current up the river of lava. And all that time, even if Robin hadn’t been on guard against an attack at any time (if only because he didn’t trust his temporary partner), simply watching as Slade had gotten more and more tense would have had him ready. _Slade_ was expecting trouble.

Oddly, now that the enemy was in the open Robin felt himself relaxing, confidence rising. Or perhaps not so oddly — he’d fought these things before, after all, in larger numbers than now, and done well. Still, perhaps ... Voice dry, he asked, “You wouldn’t still be able to command these things, would you?”

“Not any longer. Your teammate took them away from me — just before she walked willingly to her fate.”

Robin tensed again, mouth opening for an angry retort, but swallowed his response as the first wave of demons flashed toward the boat. He spun to put his back to Slade’s, the two automatically dividing the attack into two zones of responsibility, and his pole flipped up out of the lava to slam into and through the closest three. He dropped the pole onto the boat to grab throwing disks from his utility belt, disks that he’d already set to be sensitive to heat, and hurled them out. He grinned viciously as the rippling explosions that blew apart another five demons showed he’d gotten the trigger sensitivity right, then snatched up the pole again and wielded it like a quarterstaff to knock aside the last two attackers in the first wave. But the second wave was already on its way, too close for more throwing disks, and a third forming up behind. _Now_ there were as many as he’d fought before, at least, and more bubbling up. He shouted, “We can’t stay here!”

“The spires,” Slade replied, and was gone.

Robin used the pole to vault to the top of the nearest spire on his side, gasping as the intense heat of the lava that the magic of the boat had held back slammed into him. He hurled the pole to impale three more of the demons and leaped to the next spire. As he landed he drew his collapsible short staves to bat aside the few fire demons that were within reach to clear the way to the next spire, and the next, using constant movement to keep the enemy off-balance as Slade did the same on the spires on the other side of the river.

Robin had never forgiven Slade for the time years before when he had held the lives of Robin’s teammates over his head to force him to become the villain’s apprentice, to fight against his friends — to _hurt_ them — in order to protect them. Robin still didn’t understand what Slade had thought he was doing, but the villain had actually taken the apprenticeship seriously and so the two had sparred, getting a feel for each other’s style, a familiarity that they had only honed during their encounters since. Now that familiarity proved a godsend as they became like two ends of a single whirling quarterstaff, each on his own side of the river — spinning and leaping from spire to spire upstream, keeping the fire demons swarming around them off-balance, wordlessly switching the initiative back and forth, dodging blasts and charges and impossibly lengthened outstretched demonic arms while obliterating demon after demon as more bubbled up from the lava around them. Slade fought with all of his old smooth skill, the odd clumsy lethargy he’d shown since his re-appearance gone like it had never existed.

Then Slade wordlessly pointed to another beach ahead of them on his side of the river, with its own pier and boat. Robin nodded his recognition and stopped on a spire across from the beach to spin in place, short staves and feet knocking away those demons that tried to swarm him and the last of his explosive throwing discs targeting those going after his partner as Slade leaped down to the dock and snatched up one of the long poles in the boat. The villain hurled it toward him and Robin dropped his staves to snatch it out of the air. He whirled it above his head then along both sides to buzzsaw away the demons beginning to focus on him before pole-vaulting across the center of the river of lava to a spire on the opposite side. A leap to the dock and he was alongside Slade again.

As soon as Robin landed Slade spun and ran across the beach toward a shadowed opening in the cliff face, Robin on his heels. The opening proved to be an entrance to a new tunnel, and just outside it Slade spun to face the beach. The demons were right behind Robin and he jinked to one side only for the heat of two impossibly long fiery arms to scorch his shoulder and cheek as they flashed past him to slam into Slade’s face, knocking him back and down into the tunnel.

Robin whipped around and knocked the already withdrawing arms aside with a green glove-covered hand as he backed into the new corridor, ready for another attack that didn’t come. The fire demons were coming to a stop, floating above the sand, forming ranks as more constantly joined them from the lava river. They couldn’t approach closer to the tunnel, the fight was over.

He abruptly realized that he was gasping for air, his body dripping with sweat where it wasn’t covered by his costume, the costume soaked with sweat where it was. The running battle he and Slade had just engaged in reminded Robin of the time he and the Batman had fought Two-Face and his thugs in a still-operational foundry, but even then the heat hadn’t been as intense or the fight as prolonged. He suspected his lungs hadn’t escaped unscathed. From the rasp as he breathed he knew his throat hadn’t.

Shivering as his sweat cooled, Robin glanced toward Slade, saying, “Do you think we’re —” He froze, eyes widening in shock. The front of the villain’s mask had been knocked off by the last attack, and Robin found himself staring at a white, dry, hairless skull with tatters of skin around the edges of his cowl.

Slade finished putting back on his face mask. “I wish you hadn’t seen that,” he said. “Eyes on the enemy, your mentor and I trained you better than that.”

Robin jerked around to focus on the still-hovering, motionless endless ranks of fire demons and backed up deeper into the tunnel. (And how did Slade say anything, Robin wondered faintly, without lips — or a tongue, as far as he could tell.) Slade fell in beside him, and the two continued to back up with an occasional glance over their shoulders until the tunnel curved and the demons outside the entrance could no longer be seen, and the walls began to glow with a warm, soft light. Both stopped instantly and silently waited as minute after minute passed by, but none of the demons came around the curve. Finally, Slade turned and strode down the tunnel.

Robin hurried to catch up. “So what happened?” he asked quietly.

“I have the worst luck in apprentices,” Slade replied. (His gravelly voice sent a shiver down Robin’s spine, now that he knew why it was that way.) “When Terra turned on me and knocked me into the lava I should have died. I would have, if Trigon hadn’t intervened. But while he saved my life, there were ... consequences.” He fell silent, and Robin didn’t press him even as his mind insisted on considering what it would be like to live as an undead skeleton _thing_. Yes, even if he didn’t share it he could _really_ understand the Batman’s dislike of magic. As a distraction he examined the walls as they walked even as he kept an eye on Slade — just in case. Not that it was much of a distraction, the walls were polished smooth without a hint of the ornate carvings that had covered the walls of the section of the temple he had been able to explore earlier.

Over twenty minutes’ walking later the tunnel branched. One branch was well lit, the walls as smooth and polished as before; the other was dark, the reflected light from the other tunnel that illuminated a few yards in showing walls that were blackened and scarred by blast marks of some sort, and bits of rubble scattered across the floor.

Slade paused and motioned toward the dark tunnel. “We part here,” he said. “Raven is down that branch, while what I seek lies down the other.”

Robin eyed him suspiciously. “How do I know this isn’t a trap?” he asked.

Slade’s chuckle was like grinding stone. “You don’t,” he replied. “But Trigon betrayed me, and it is only fair that I return the favor. And you and your friends oppose him.”

After a few seconds’ thought Robin reluctantly nodded. “All right, but if it _is_ a trap I’ll know where to find you.”

“Of course,” Slade said as if dismissing the obvious, then strode away down the lighted tunnel.

Robin watched him go until he was well out of attack range, then pulled his flashlight out of his utility belt and turned toward his own tunnel.

Unlike the previous tunnel’s gentle turns, the new one was straight as an arrow. Not that that meant Robin could see further now, his sight limited by his flashlight’s beam and the need to keep an eye on the rubble-strewn floor to avoid tripping. Still, it was only a few minutes before the end of the tunnel came into view, and a new room.

It was a chapel of some sort, that much was clear — rows of broken stone pews and a pulpit (sliced cleanly in two pieces) made that clear. But the chapel was definitely not Christian, or any other religion Robin knew of. The huge, leering face of Trigon carved into the back wall made that clear, still recognizable even with the series of craters that stretched across it. And he didn’t want to think of what use the heavily damage altar on the upraised platform behind the pulpit had been put to.

And there was no other way out, no other doorway, and no hidden passages — that was clear from the signs of battle still etched into the walls, some of the craters as deep as his forearm. Whoever had hit the place had done so hard and fast, and he was grimly certain they had taken no prisoners. From the bones scattered among the rubble of the pews, they hadn’t bothered to tend to the bodies, either — simply smashed their way in, massacred everyone they found, and walked away. And from the _state_ of those bones, when he knelt to look closely for a moment at several ribs, it had happened a long time ago, maybe a _very_ long time ago. And the site hadn’t been disturbed since, not even by scavengers other than insects. Not even rats.

But no entrance meant that either Slade had lied to him or Raven was somewhere in the room, and even limited to his flashlight’s beam he didn’t see anywhere that someone her size could hide. Still, with the shadows cast by the flashlight he could easily be missing something, and this was his only lead. Best to check before he went storming off after the villain.

/\

He was halfway through his methodical search when he caught a hint of movement — a sound to his right, the faint scuff of something on stone, a clatter of rock on rock. Whipping around, he panned his flashlight toward the sound and caught a flash of white in the edge of the beam, of something darting to one side, the sound of more disturbed rubble. He instantly leaped to interpose himself between whatever it was and the doorway. It had been too small to be Raven and she hadn’t been wearing anything white, but it was the first sign of life since he’d left Slade. Maybe he, she or it might know of another entrance?

He cautiously moved away from the doorway in the direction whatever it was had darted, panning his flashlight back and forth to make sure it couldn’t get past him — and the beam passed over a white figure. He instantly moved it back, and froze at what the beam revealed.

It was a little girl about age five, her skin a dusky gray, her shoulder-length hair black, a red bindi in the middle of her forehead, wearing a white leotard and belt of gold links and red gems, a white cape. She was clutching a badly-skinned knee with one hand as the other shielded her eyes from his flashlight’s beam, shivering in absolute silence as tears coursed down her cheeks.

“Raven?” he whispered.

The child jerked at the sound of his voice. In a weak, trembling voice, she asked, “Wh-wh-who a-are you?”


	11. Final Stand

As he strode down the warmly lit tunnel, Slade idly wondered just what Robin would find. When he’d awakened lying abandoned in the chapel where he’d been betrayed and the hold Trigon had had on his mind broken, he’d been surprised that he was still able to sense Raven’s location — both because the rest of the powers he’d been given were gone, and because she was supposed to be dead. But his link to her had never told him anything about her state, either mental or physical. He supposed Trigon might have left her alive so he could feast on her despair and self-loathing, but Slade doubted it. He’d heard Trigon rant about the daughter that had fought him harder than any other of his ‘children’ and how the demon would delight in her final dissolution when it came, so it was unlikely that he knew she had somehow survived her ‘father’s’ arrival — and that _might_ mean she held the key to Trigon’s defeat. But not likely.

_Leave it to the fools to throw themselves at windmills, you have your own business_ , he thought as he followed the _other_ presence he could sense, pulling him along the corridor — his lost humanity.

Soon the corridor again opened out into another small rough-hewn cavern, a stone bridge arcing over a river — brook, more like — of lava that Slade assumed was a tributary feeding the main river he and Robin had sailed up. On the other side of the rivulet was a pair of massive stone doors with Trigon’s sigil emblazoned on them in glowing red, the light combining with the glow from the lava to light the cavern. Standing in front of them was an equally massive humanoid figure seemingly carved out of stone, wearing a brown loincloth with leather straps crossing its chest, an executioner’s hood over its head. It carried a halberd sized to its mass with blades at each end.

The figure’s chuckle rumbled out. “So, you have arrived.”

Slade strode across the bridge and stopped a few yards away. “I have come for what is rightfully mine,” he ground out.

The figure’s chuckle turned into full-throated, earth-shaking laughter. “Fool!” it cried out, “This world is the Master’s, and everything in it to dispose of as he wishes! You are nothing but a tool that has outlasted its usefulness. Go, wander the wastes to see what you have helped create. If you beg, he may be merciful and end your pitiful existence.”

“Never!” Slade sprang forward, spinning to slam a heel into the guard’s face, only to feel the bones in his foot and ankle creaking and cracking under the impact (no pain, though — he hadn’t felt physical pain since Trigon had pulled him from the lava).

The guardian didn’t even twitch. Instead there was more rumbling laughter has it lurched into motion, the heavy blade at one end of his halberd bursting into flame as he swung it down.

Slade easily sidestepped the clumsy attack — and threw himself backwards as in an eyeblink the downward chop sliced sideways to lay open the black fabric of his costume and the chainmail underneath to expose dry, bare ribs. Slade hit the ground hard enough to knock air out of lungs if he’d had any, and his hands clapped together to catch the halberd’s shaft, stopping the burning blade inches from his face. _At least I still have my strength_ , he thought as he twisted to one side and yanked. The halberd hit the ground within inches of his face mask, cutting deep into the rock as easily as a hot knife through butter. He yanked on the shaft as his braced feet rose to catch the off-balance guard in his midriff and flip him over into the stream of lava behind them.

Slade sprang to his feet and turned around, and took several steps back as he looked up at the hulking guard stepping out of the rivulet. The guard ignored the lava dripping off of him as he scooped up his halberd. As he hefted his weapon he growled, “It’s time for you to lie down with the rest of the bones!”

“You first,” Slade replied in as mocking a tone as he could manage, then skipped back to avoid a sideways slash, and again as the guard lumbered toward him. The massive doors were right behind him, the guard must think he’d been trapped. _Wait for it...._

The guard lifted the halberd, swung downward ... and Slade stepped forward again, caught the shaft and _yanked_ , guiding the descending blade so that it slashed toward the door, and catapulted himself over the guard.

He wasn’t quite fast enough and the world went white, thunder hammering his ears as the explosion picked him up and hurled him across the cavern. He bounced across the stony ground, rolled, slammed to a stop. Lifting himself up on one arm, he looked around to find himself against the far wall, a few yards away from the entrance to the corridor he’d just come out of. He stared across the cavern as he rose to his feet and would have smiled if he had lips. His impromptu plan had worked spectacularly well, much better than he’d expected. The guardian had apparently been made of stone, and that stone was now scattered across the cavern floor, along with pieces of the doors. And where the doors had been ...

Tiny balls of light streaked out of the glowing white of the now-empty doorway. Most of them slammed into the wall a few yards away in an explosion of rock shards and dust, but one shifted toward him and vanished into his chest, and for an instant it was as if his entire being had caught fire, white-hot, like the lava into which Terra had thrown him. Then it was gone, and he found himself on his hands and knees, hacking for breath and feeling so very, very cold.

_Cold?_

He leaped to his feet, warming as his lungs ( _his lungs!_ ) sucked in the hot air of the cavern. He yanked off a glove and stared at his normal, flesh-covered hand, then grabbed for the rent in his armor from his just-finished fight to find more flesh. He was human again!

He gusted out a sigh of relief, then looked around. _Now for an exit...._ He turned toward the corridor he’d used before, and his eyes widened as he saw light streaming into the cavern from where the rest of the glowing balls had hit the wall. He strode over to find that they had actually carved a new tunnel all the way to the surface. He’d have to crawl out, but it was better than trying to get past the fire demons again. _That_ would mean depending on Robin again, and if the Boy Wonder _had_ found Raven Slade didn’t want to be in the same _country_ as that witch, much less the same _room_.

_Assuming there are any countries to share, when this is all over_ , he thought, then shrugged and crouched to begin his crawl up to the surface. He did have to admit that when those fools charged their windmills, they successfully carried the charge through more often than they should. Maybe they’d be successful again.

/oOo\

The little girl lifted a hand to shield her eyes from the light shining in them. Even though she’d been discovered by whoever had entered her refuge, she was still fighting to stay silent even as she felt more tears tracking down her cheeks — this time as because of the pain from the gash in her leg thanks to her fall when she’d tried to escape as the terror shaking her.

Then a soft voice said, “Raven?”

_Raven. I’m Raven._ That felt ... half-right, but incomplete somehow. And the voice was familiar, and safe; she felt herself relaxing just to hear it. It wasn’t the voice of the Bad Man, and the presence behind the light felt comforting, loving, like when her mothers had wrapped her in a soft blanket. In that love’s warm embrace, the sickening all-pervasive sensation of the Bad Man’s presence was swept away, leaving only the fragment in her heart. But the voice didn’t belong to any of her mothers. “Wh-wh-who a-are you?” she stammered.

“I’m Robin.” The light shifted, rising to illuminate the face of a young man, black hair with a domino mask. Because of the angle of the light from underneath, his features were distorted, almost monstrous. But the sense of familiarity grew, and the feeling of safety — but at the same time she felt the hissing, clawing, slimy, heavy, stabbing pain lurking at the edges of her mind press in. She began to shake again.

“You’re shivering, let’s get you out of here to where it’s warm,” Robin said. “But first let’s get that scrape cleaned up.” He dropped to one knee beside her and handed her the flashlight. “Here, hold this, shine it on your leg.” As Raven instinctively obeyed, he removed something from his belt. “That dirt is ground in, so this is going to hurt,” he warned, “but it needs to come out or it might get infected. You ready?”

The voice wasn’t that of any of her mothers, but the words were and she found herself relaxing even more even as she braced herself like she had before. “Yes,” she answered in a voice the only shook a little. He was right, it hurt. But she only whimpered a little bit, and the pain and her focus on it helped drive back the half-sensed monsters from her mind.

“There,” a satisfied Robin said as he finished putting a bandage on the scrape, “now let’s get you out of here. Hold onto the flashlight and point it ahead of us.” He quickly wrapped her cape around her, leaving the hand with the flashlight free, then scooped her up in his arms and turned toward the doorway. “Shine the flashlight on the ground so I don’t trip,” he instructed as he started to walk. “So you don’t remember me?”

Raven snuggled down in his arms, smiling to herself for the first time since she’d woken up. “No,” she replied, shaking her head against his chest. _Yes?_ She didn’t _remember_ anything, but he _felt_ familiar — and warm, like _happiness_. Maybe, protected by his arms, she could face the pain lurking at the edges of her mind.

“Well, why don’t I tell you about the Raven I know, and maybe that’ll help you remember the Robin _you_ know. We first met when an alien princess called Starfire escaped from her captors....”

As the story of that long night unfolded and he carried her out of that room and down a dark corridor to another of softly warm light (pausing long enough to take the flashlight from her when they reached it), she _did_ finding herself remembering the thrill of the running fight against the lizard-like Gordanian slavers, but also the shame and despair that had led her to _be_ there that night, to flee those that loved her — and _why_ she had run.

And this time the memories of the Pit and the year as a scum-encrusted wall ornament and sex toy _were_ memories, not just dreams however real — they were _her_. And _him_ , Ranma, the raven-haired boy whose life she had dreamed, whom she had considered such a loser — ill-mannered, obnoxious, an ego without limits, often uncaring and sometimes cruel. Oh, he’d had his good points, some of them considerable — his loyalty to friends and willingness to help complete strangers, even to the point of laying his life on the line, she’d found particularly attractive. But on the whole she hadn’t been proud of her previous life, and its ending had been a horror show—as much for what she had _done_ as for what she had suffered. Now as she relived that life, she found herself burning with shame — _Ranma_ wouldn’t have despaired the way she had, wouldn’t have given up, wouldn’t have hurt her mothers the way she had just to find a hole to crawl into and pretend that her ‘father’ wasn’t coming. _He_ would have spent the last four years training, working with her mothers, her grandparents, anyone else willing to help, searching Earth, Asgard and Niflheim, the Fair Country, the Dreaming, anywhere and everywhere for a way to beat her ‘father’. In truth, _he_ was the better person. Or at least, the stronger.

Still, she couldn’t regret her weakness. In running away from one group that loved her she’d found another, and now she smiled, snuggling her five-year-old body a bit in her teammate’s arms and basking in the warm aura of his concerned love as she remembered the four years she had spent with her friends — sometimes those years had been scary (the time she’d switched bodies with Starfire while the boys’ souls had had been trapped in wooden puppets suspended over open flames had been terrifying), even occasionally heartbreaking (for weeks, Beast Boy’s grief after Terra was turned to stone had made it impossible to stay around him for any length of time), but her empathic sense had meant that she’d never been able to doubt the way her teammates had come to love her and in the end not even learning of her destiny had been enough to shake them, or convince them to give up on her. _Maybe together we_ can _beat him. Akane and I beat Saffron together, after all._ She ignored her own quiet voice in the back of her mind telling her that Trigon was considerably stronger than that arrogant egomaniac had ever _dreamed_ of being. She’d just have to be like Ranma instead of Raven, and _plan_ instead of just going with the flow ... _not that I was all that much of a planner as Ranma, now that I think about it_ , she thought wryly. _Making it up as I went along was more my thing_. But there had been a few times, like the final showdown with Ryu and some pranks played on Ryoga, now all she needed to do was combine the two. And she had Robin’s example.

She briefly considered telling her teammate that she had her memories back and he could put her down. But considering the comparative lengths of their legs he’d just end up carrying her again, anyway, and wouldn’t _that_ be awkward! Besides, she was ... comfortable ... in a way she hadn’t been in too many years....

Then Robin came to an abrupt halt, breaking off in the middle of his latest story about the Titans’ latest encounter with H.I.V.E. Raven lifted her head and twisted around so she could see what was ahead of them, only now realizing that she was sweating under her cape — it had gotten considerably warmer as they’d walked. She stiffened as a bolt of fear shot through her at the sight of the same fire elementals that had come for her at the Tower now blocking the end of the corridor. She was only five years old, she didn’t know how well her powers worked or even how much power she really had — Black light began to flare around her, tendrils of power reaching out to crawl along the walls, ceiling and floor, and Robin’s arms tightened. “Easy, we’re all right,” he murmured. “I have an idea.” He slowly paced forward, and Raven felt him relax when the elementals slowly backed away. He said in a normal volume, “I thought so, they still see you as on their side. As long as we don’t do anything to disabuse them, we’ll be fine.”

He picked up the pace forward out of the corridor into a cavern, and the fire elementals parted to reveal a boat tied up to a dock stretching out into a river of lava. Robin strode to the boat and carefully stepped into it, crouched to lower the apparent five-year-old to the center seat, ignoring the black energy still flaring around her, and grabbed up a pole lying in the boat. A swift slash with a knife to cut the rope tying the boat to the dock, and within moments he was pushing them away from the dock with the pole as he kept a close eye on the fire elementals. Raven had twisted around as soon as Robin had put her down, and was also watching them. Those darkly burning beings had followed them to the river and were now drifting out over the lava behind them, following the boat as it drifted with the current.

Then the elementals paused and began sinking down into the lava, and Raven gusted a sigh of relief as she realized that the only reason they had followed them down the river was so that there’d be room enough over the lava for them all. She and Robin were safe.

She slumped, the black light coruscating around her vanishing with her easing fear, and Robin began poling the boat downriver. As he restarted the story he’d been telling about Jinx and the rest of that H.I.V.E. gang, she smiled happily ... and froze. She was happy — but not Happy. _She_ was in control, and the independent emotion fragment made up of all the best of her life wasn’t even _trying_ to take over! Now that she thought about it, neither had Fear when they’d confronted the fire elementals.

Forcing herself to relax, she glanced up at her teammate to find that — contrary to the relaxed, gentle tone of his voice — Robin’s eyes were scanning all around, searching for new threats as he poled them along. The boat was far from the calm, quiet, homey ideal for meditation that her homes in Titans Tower and with her mothers provided, but with Robin on watch it would be safe enough. She curled up, closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and as she slowly let it out she let all awareness of the world blow out with it — the rocking motion of the boat each time Robin shifted the pole forward, the faint plop of the pole sinking into the lava, the equally faint heat of the lava itself (the boat was obviously magically shielded or the heat from the lava would make it unusable), everything. It was a crude form of mind-diving, and dangerous because of how much it cut one off from all awareness of the outside world, but it was quick, and so ...

If Raven hadn’t been in a trance she would have frozen in shock at what she found — nothing, nothing at all. No separate ‘island realms’ for each strong emotion, no fragments of her psyche quarreling with each other or fighting for dominance, just a blank slate — nothing but her memories of two lives. Well, _almost_ nothing. If she focused as well as her quick-and-dirty meditation allowed, she could sense faint ‘fault lines’ running through her psyche, weak points, like a glass goblet that had been shattered then jigsawed back together and heated _just_ enough that the pieces could stick to each other — but only barely. But as weak as it was, for the first time in over four years her mind was whole!

But not quite alone. In her mind’s deepest reaches, she could sense a ‘bubbling’ cesspool of hate and anger and delight in others’ pain. Now that she was whole again it only felt like it was seeping through her, pooling against her defenses and tainting everything instead of like an incoming tide threatening to wash her away, but her ‘father’s’ link to her still held ... and it was a link that went _both_ ways.

Raven let herself slowly ‘rise’ back into the outer world, and as sound and motion and heat again washed over her, she felt her lips twist into a vicious smile as a plan began to take shape.

/\

On the mountain ridge above Jump City, a young-appearing raven-haired goddess crouched, ignoring the fighting below. When Urd had led her Furies in their assault on the Devourer, Skuld had moved far enough back from the edge of the shelf that she couldn’t be observed except by the highest flyers caught up in the dogfight above the Devourer’s new throne. Even though those flyers should have more important things to do than scout the mountains surrounding the city on three sides, Skuld had hidden behind some stone tangle that had been scrub before the Devourer’s arrival (complete with several stone birds suspended in air where they’d been about to land on a nest complete with stone chicks) and tamped down her own power signature as best she could. Since then her eyes had been fixed on her datapad’s screen thrown up on the glasses through their wireless connection, watching for the least hint that the interference with the signal from her adopted niece’s bindi was clearing up.

At long last her patience was rewarded and the screen abruptly cleared, showing Robin rising to his feet at the edge of the crater that had been an abandoned library before the Devourer’s rising had blotted it from existence. And riding on Robin’s back, arms around his neck and legs around his waist ... was that child in white leotard and cape _Raven_? Skuld fingers flew across her virtual keyboard as she ordered a physical scan, and her eyes widened at the results. She input a records query — it was Raven, all right, bindi still attached and everything, but her physical age was not quite six ... just before she had begun reliving Ranma’s life in her dreams.

For a long moment Skuld speculated about just why and how her niece had ended up de-aging and wondered if her memories had de-aged with her body, before shrugging aside the distraction and typing in the command flipping the universal channel switch on her communicator. Ignoring the babble of _all_ of the Furies shouting reports and commands, with the occasional scream of pain mixed in, she cranked up the microphone volume and whispered urgently, “Raven is on the surface! Repeat, Raven is on the surface! She’s a bit smaller than she was but Robin has her, on the edge of the crater to the north of the Devourer’s throne! Acknowledge!”

Silence slammed down (except for a fresh scream of pain), then Urd’s voice said, “ _Acknowledged, good job, little sis. Helga, Concepcion, let Starfire know and lead her down to Robin — take a route out of the Devourer’s line of sight. Everyone else, keep going as you are,_ don’t _attract the Devourer’s attention to Raven!_ ”

Skuld unconsciously nodded her agreement as she closed the universal channel — _that_ would get Starfire out of the line of fire. The goddess’s job done, she shifted the bindi’s viewpoint to ten feet above her niece and nodded her approval as she watched Robin scurry around a stone building corner with Raven still on his back. _Keep her safe for just a little longer, kid,_ she thought, _help is on the way._

/\

As Starfire and the blonde Nordic and brunette Hispanic Furies that seemed to have assigned themselves the positions of her wingwomen circled well above Trigon’s antlered head, she distantly reflected that if the situation hadn’t been so serious she would actually be enjoying herself.

The princess had loved her four years on Earth, and not just because of Robin — those years had allowed her more gentle side a freedom to soar that she had not enjoyed since she had begun her training under the Warlords of Okaara. The Warlords were considered to be among the premier warriors in the known galaxy and for them to accept one for training was a great (and _very_ expensive) honor, but they had considered any show of compassion to be an exploitable weakness — and the time she had spent as a slave of the Gordanians had seemed to prove them right. She was grateful beyond measure that her time on Earth had proven both her trainers and her enslavers wrong.

Still, as liberating as her time on Earth had been in one way, in another it had been _very_ constrictive — the need to avoid actually killing anyone the Titans fought had meant that not only did she have to fight her training, she had to keep iron control over her powers at the same time she was using her passionate nature to fuel them. The effort and double-think required was ... taxing. _Now_ , though, she was not only free to cut loose with everything she had, but the commander of the Titans’ surprise allies had loaned her special bracers that enhanced her starblasts! The results had been _spectacular_ — Raven’s father was even _bleeding_ from multiple craters she’d managed to carve into his flesh!

But their enemy _was_ Raven’s father, and instead of delighting in her full destructive power, all the orange-toned, fiery-haired alien felt was rage at what Trigon had done to Friend Raven and the adopted home the Titans’ girls shared, and grim determination to do whatever it took to see Justice Done, no matter the price.

Now she lined up for another attack run, being careful to stay above the buildings that surrounded them. She had been lucky that the first time Trigon had responded to her attacks with eyebeams of his own she had been high enough that the attack hadn’t blown through any of those buildings — and the ossified people within them — and she intended to keep it that way. She couldn’t imagine how the transformation Trigon’s arrival had unleashed could be reversed, but she refused to give up hope that it might happen. And when it _was_ reversed, those buildings and the people in them would be in the same condition as they had been when ossified.

Suddenly, hands grabbed Starfire around each upper arm and pulled her up away from her attack run, to the side away from Trigon. She struggled for a moment before realizing that the hands belonged to her wingwomen, _not_ the black and green pterodactyl-things those wingwomen had been keeping off her back. Now that she thought of it, she noticed that there were a lot fewer of those _things_ in the air around her, most of them now so many corpses scattered all over the landscape — and her heart clenched as she saw how fewer of the winged women there were, as well. _Later_ , she told herself, refocusing on the blonde, slightly horse-faced woman now hovering in front of her with wings spread wide. While she’d long decided that the Warlords teaching that compassion was a weakness was horribly wrong, now was not the time. “What is wrong?” she demanded, then relaxed at the broad grin on the face of her impromptu battle comrade.

“Robin found Raven, they’re down — look out!”

Starfire whipped around to find herself staring straight at Trigon’s upraised red, single-antlered face where he had twisted on his throne, all four yellow eyes glowing. Even as that yellow glow leapt out toward her something hammered into her shoulder, twisting her around as it knocked her to one side, and for an instant she saw her wingwomen — both the blonde that had been talking to her and the brunette that had knocked her out of the way — caught dead center in the merged eyebeam’s yellow glare before the women seemed to come apart and wash away.

Starfire froze in horror at the sight ... only for a split second, but too long. Even as she started to dodge Trigon twisted to track her, and she wasn’t _quite_ fast enough to avoid being clipped. Her every muscle spasmed with indescribable pain as she spun away like a top, and the stony ground rushing up toward her blurred and vanished into gathering dark.

/\

Raven sighed with relief as Robin swung her over his shoulder and lowered her to the stony sidewalk, around the corner of an equally stony building just out of sight of her ‘father’. Now that she had the outline of a plan she was no longer distracted, and was feeling more and more guilty that she hadn’t told her teammate that she had her memories back — and then some (though _that_ she was planning to keep to herself). Now she just needed an excuse so she could pretend she’d just remembered —

Robin peeked around the corner of the building, from the tilt of his head scanning the sky. He exclaimed, “There’s Starfire!”

“Really? Where?” Raven ducked under Robin’s arm to look almost straight up ... just in time to see Trigon’s eyeblasts flash out to smash into two Furies, disrupting their corporeal forms, twisting to send Starfire spinning in an arc toward the ground. For just a moment she was elsewhere — surrounded by incandescent heat as a doll form flying ahead of her ... him ... burned to ashes and mocking laughter resounded in his ears. “Akane!” she screamed as she leapt into the air, an arm outstretched as the black energy of her power reached out to catch her friend before the alien princess smashed into the rock of the ground. She lowered Starfire gently down the last few yards to the ground and landed beside her, shaking from her adrenaline rush as just for a moment she could see a ghostly image of her ... his ... former fiancée overlay her teammate’s body. _Great, now I’m having flashbacks to nightmares from my past life. No wonder we forget everything when we move on_ , she thought distantly. She glanced over as a Robin radiating shocked fear ran over to join them and waved her hand up at the sky to signal the need for him to keep watch before she frantically checked Starfire’s condition. She ignored the large power amplifiers around each forearm, hissing at what she found — Starfire’s purple costume covering her torso was hanging loose, one side of it burned away, and one revealed breast and her torso and arm on the same side were covered with the blisters of what had to be third degree burns.

Abruptly, Raven felt a wave of joy wash over her and an unburned orange hand reached up to stroke her gray cheek. “Friend Raven, you have returned to us. I am happy you are alive. But you are ... small. And your clothes are white.”

Starfire’s voice was weak and pushed through gritted teeth, but her eyes were clear if pain-filled as they roved over Raven’s five-year-old form. Raven sighed with relief. Her friend wasn’t in any danger — from her injuries, at least — and if Raven had to she could guilt-trip her mothers into providing literally divine aid for recovery. Voice harsh with remembered fear, she demanded, “What did those Warlords you told us about teach you about turning your back on an enemy?”

“To never do so without a trusted comrade to watch for you. And I had two. But they ...” Starfire’s voice choked up with grief as tears she had refused to shed from pain now spilled down the side of her face, and Raven hastened to reassure her.

“Don’t worry, they’ll be fine.”

“ _Fine?_ But I saw them —” Starfire started incredulously.

“Fine,” Raven repeated. “They can’t be killed, only discorporated. They’re already dead — all the Furies are.”

“Friendly incoming.”

Raven looked up at Robin’s warning, and felt her heart turn over at the sight of her Mother Urd in full battle regalia dropping toward them with wings widespread. _Later._ “Well, _almost_ all the Furies are dead,” she corrected. _Anything Momma Urd has that can fix Starfire will probably knock her out as well, and with those power amplifiers I need her...._ She rose to her feet and held up one hand as her mother landed. “Pain-killer.”

Urd’s eyes had widened at the sight of her now diminutive daughter, but she simply nodded and twisted one hand before handing Raven the bottle that appeared in it. “The same pain-killer we gave you as a child when you over-practiced with your powers,” the platinum blonde goddess said, “so she’ll stay alert and she can’t overdose.”

Raven dropped down next to her friend again and twisted off the bottle’s top before lowering it to Starfire’s lips. “Drink it all,” she ordered.

Starfire swallowed once, again, a third time before going limp with relief. “Thank —” she started to say before breaking off, her eyes going wide as she looked up past Raven’s shoulder.

Raven whirled and looked up to find her ‘father’s’ massive form rising to his hoofed feet and turning to stare down at them, noting from the missing antler that at least the Earth’s defenders had _hurt_ him. Then his four eyes flared yellow, and even as his eyeblast flashed across the sixty feet separating them Raven flung herself into the air and opened herself to her ‘father’s’ power before channeling it out into a massive dome covering the four. She was barely aware of the yellow energy splashing against the translucent, oddly gray barrier as she fought to control her nausea at the foul sensation of Trigon’s power permeating her being, and only gradually became aware that Urd was hovering beside her, her mother’s own arms uplifted and the two strips of cloth hanging down her back outside her wings glowing. Urd’s half-white/half-black angel had sprung from between her mistress’s wings, voice lifted in a soaring, wordless battle hymn. But the hymn was weak and shaky, and shudders were running the length of World of Elegance’s body.

Eyes widening in realization, Raven hastily cut off her power to the dome. Instantly World of Elegance’s song evened out as it strengthened, her shuddering fading away. Another wave of yellow washed over the now translucent white dome, and Urd sighed in relief even as she began to sweat. “That was _really_ foul. You can’t have felt that every time you used your powers since joining the Titans, much less while growing up.”

Raven shook her head. “No, it only started when Trigon finally summoned me. Can you hold for a few more strikes?”

“I can hold as long as you need,” Urd replied, then winced as another strike hammered home. “You have a plan?”

“Yes,” Raven replied. “Have your Furies let Cyborg and Beast Boy know to find cover while I coordinate with Starfire, then when I say, drop the shield and get Robin to safety.” Urd nodded, paling as another strike struck, sweat beginning to trickle down her face, and Raven hastily dropped down to land next to her teammates. Sighing with relief to find the princess now standing, twisting and turning her burned arm to check her range of motion, Raven eyed the bulky power amplifier on that arm, now at about eye-level — it didn’t _look_ damaged and Urd hadn’t said anything so it must not be dangerous now, right? _Best not to chance it._ “Starfire, I have a plan,” she said without preamble. “When Mama Urd drops the shield, circle around and above Trigon while I distract him. When I give the word, hit the back of his head with everything you have — but _only_ with your unburned arm, I don’t trust the other power amplifier, not after that hit. Once you’ve done that, get out of the way as fast as you can. Understand?”

Starfire nodded. “It is a simple plan.”

“When possible, simple is best,” Raven replied. She glanced at up to find Robin looking down at her, gaze speculative. “No role for you, Robin, I’m afraid. This one is a little out of your league.”

The Boy Wonder glanced up as the dome above them again flared yellow, then shrugged as he grudgingly replied, “You know more about this than I do, I’ll follow your lead.”

She flashed him a smile of thanks, then as Starfire drifted up from the ground, looked up at the now visibly-shaking demon/goddess and angel, waited until one more strike briefly turned their world yellow, and shouted, “Mom, now!”

The shield vanished, and even as World of Elegance vanished back within her mistress, Urd dropped toward Robin, and Starfire streaked away low to the ground, Raven rose to hover in front of her ‘father’. Ignoring the Furies pulling back to give her room (all that were left in the sky besides her and Starfire, the pterodactyl-demons now gone), she smirked as the huge yellow eyes widened at the sight of her. “Hello, _daddy_ , miss me?” she asked with a smirk, even as she mentally dropped all resistance to Trigon’s connection to her and fought not to shudder or gag as she began to pull more and more of his power through the link.

“So, daughter, you survived, interesting,” he rumbled. “Though you aren’t what you were.”

Raven glanced down at her prepubescent body and snarked, “Yeah, well, considering that I was totally obliterated and had to pull myself together from all over the landscape, I’d say I came out pretty well. I’m tougher than I look.”

Those yellow eyes narrowed, then Trigon’s deep rumbling laughter bellowed out over the transformed city. “I am Trigon, the Devourer of Worlds! You are nothing, an insignificant speck. Do you really believe you have any hope of challenging your father?”

“ ‘Father’? ‘ _Father’?_ ” Raven hissed as her earliest memories of Genma rose, from before avarice and ambition turned him into a mockery of what he had been — the stout martial artist cheering on his son as Ranma stumbled through his first kata, picking him up and swinging him around, beaming with happy pride when the little boy finally succeeded. And later memories of fiancée after fiancée, the parade of families that his father had used his son to cheat thanks to petty greed and hunger. She shouted, “A _father_ loves his children! A _father_ protects and teaches them, provides for them! A _father_ doesn’t use them as disposable tools, to be abused and discarded when they no longer suit him. You may be responsible for half of my soul, but _you are NOT MY FATHER! Starfire, now!_ ”

Directly behind the monster, Starfire lifted _both_ arms and fired everything she had into the back of Trigon’s skull. Trigon rocked forward, roaring in pain and fury, and staggered as one hoof slipped off the wide column his throne was on and plunged down into the depths beneath what had been the library. Even as he grabbed onto his throne for balance, Raven took all the stolen power soiling her soul and poured it straight into the monster’s four eyes in one massive pulse. Trigon clenched his eyelids closed as a hand as big as Raven awkwardly tried to swat her from the sky, but she dodged easily even as despair filled her. Trigon’s pain and anger were beating at her empathic senses, but no fear or desperation. More, on one case the Titans had been called in for by the police she had seen what happened when someone’s eyes literally popped, and there was no fluid seeping from under the monster’s eyelids. She had hurt him, but hadn’t come close to crippling him. She desperately reached deep into the link she shared with Trigon and _pulled_ more power through, ignoring the sickness its touch inflicted on her soul, the deep burn telling her of damage the black energy coruscating around her was inflicting on her tiny body as she fought to keep her assault at full power and centered on his eyes —

And then she gasped, faltering as she felt a soft ‘touch’, a familiar presence abruptly surrounding her — Auntie Bell? And just as abruptly her entire body erupted with pain as fresh power flowed into her, more even than her initial assault ... _much_ more. And in spite of the pain — or _because_ of it — _this_ power was clean, fresh ... pure. Trigon’s power ‘shrank’ away from it, dissipated where that new power ‘overran’ it — and Raven smiled viciously as she realized what she needed to do. Ignoring the pain tightening every muscle and ripping an unending scream from her throat, she ‘reached’ for her link to Trigon to find it ‘shrinking’. ‘Taking hold’, she fought to keep it open, to even ‘widen’ it, and that pure light poured through. On and on she fought, even as the pain mounted, even worse than when she had been obliterated to grant Trigon entry to Earth, her final, sole purpose to make and keep herself a conduit for that power into Trigon’s defenseless soul.

/\

Starfire distantly reflected that the pain-killer that Raven had given her was excellent stuff. As she fired everything she had through both power amplifiers on her forearms straight into the back of Trigon’s head, as she did her best to shower her friend on the other side with her father’s brains, as the amplifier on her burned arm first sparked then exploded, shredding that forearm’s muscles and driving bits of shrapnel into her face and other arm (thankfully missing her eyes), she felt no pain, only exultation as the monster stumbled and almost fell, roaring his pain and fury. Even more than before, she had _hurt_ him!

Then the second power amplifier sparked and died, a quick glance revealing several pieces of shrapnel imbedded in it. Realizing there was nothing more she could do, she fled up as well as away, twisting to look back behind her ... and her flight slowed and stopped as she gaped as her friend seemed to _explode_ , the tiny white-clad figure suddenly lost in a wave of the power that Raven had used and fought to control for so long as Starfire had known her. That wave _smashed_ straight into Trigon’s face and Starfire’s face twisted in a vicious snarl as he _screamed_. But the snarl faded as that coruscating black flood of power quickly began to fade, and Trigon straightened and blindly waved one hand as he tried to kill his tormentor.

Starfire jolted into motion, starting to fly down to snatch Raven out of the way—she didn’t know how she was going to find her friend in the midst of that onslaught, or even if she could dive into it and live, but she had to do _something_ ... only to pause as that black power vanished, leaving her friend hanging in the air for a split second. And then Raven started to _glow_. It started low but quickly grew and within seconds Starfire had to lift her single functional arm to shield her eyes ... and then _Trigon_ started to glow! He fell back onto his throne, convulsed, shrieked in agony as his skin seemed to melt away and ray after ray of pure white light burst from him. Those rays widened, spread until there was nothing but a screaming humanoid one-antlered form of pure light writhing on the column he had raised up — and the unending shriek abruptly cut off as he silently exploded, and the world went white.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, when I said that I was going to lose some writing time over the holidays I didn’t imagine that it would be _that_ much! I hope the chapter is worth the wait. I considered breaking this up into two chapters, but decided that I’d said only two more chapters to finish up the story, and two it would be. It’s definitely one of my longer ones, though. So, one more chapter for the epilogue and this story can be put to bed.


	12. Better than I Used to Be

In her eternal Now, Belldandy felt the effects of the Devourer’s obliteration begin to crawl around the globe, all the Earth’s living multitudes released from their stony prisons in its wake as if they had never been transformed into enslaved batteries for maintaining the Devourer’s life and power. On the edge of that wave she released her connection to each life as it re-awoke and released those on or under water or in the air from their timeless state, until in the end there were only her connections to her father and the Daimakaicho, into which she had funneled the strength of all that lived — the strength that they had then poured into their adopted granddaughter. Then those connections, too, were severed — from the other ends this time — and Belldandy was alone in the center of her circle. She watched as the power filling that circle slowly drain away with both relief — she was literally coated with sweat from the effort of the casting — and regret.

That casting had been complex beyond anything she had ever imagined, as had been the stress of bending power to her will — the power passing through her hands had been enough to obliterate Asgard if it had run wild, and she hadn’t been sure that Kami-sama and Hild’s protective circles enclosing the chamber would hold if she lost control. But she hadn’t, and the connection with all that lived had been a glory like nothing she’d ever experienced, or expected to ever experience again.

Then the last of the glow vanished from the her circle, the casting was complete, and she reluctantly allowed herself to drop out of her Now into the world of time once again, to find her father and Hild waiting for her in their own circles. The happy smile on her father’s face was no surprise, she had seen it times beyond counting. The happy smile on _Hild’s_ face, on the other hand, just looked wrong, in spite of what Belldandy knew of the Daimakaicho’s millennia-long deception.

Then the smiles vanished as Belldandy took a step forward and felt her knees give way. Both her elders instantly stepped forward, catching her arms to give her support, easing her down onto a wood-framed, padded recliner that hadn’t been there a moment before. For that matter, neither had sand underneath the couch, the tropical jungle underneath a clear, blue sky she could see over her elders’ shoulders, or the surf she could hear washing up on the sand behind her.

As soon as she was comfortable, her father stepped back and lay down on his own recliner, now dressed in Bermuda shorts and a Hawaiian floral print shirt. A grinning Hild, in a surprisingly tasteful one-piece swimsuit, lay down next to him and snuggled up. Belldandy felt her cheeks heat. Her father and his ex weren’t doing anything ... indecorous, but she could ‘feel’ the heat from yards away. She was both honored and more than a little uncomfortable ... the fact that they trusted her enough — that Hild accepted her enough — to let their masks drop was gratifying, but it was her _father_! Then Hild winked at her and her blush turned fiery. She hastily glanced down at herself, mildly surprised to find she was still in the same light dress she had worn to the park, though the sheen of sweat that had covered her had vanished.

Hild spoke up from where she was cuddled. “I know you will want to rejoin your family as soon as you can, so you don’t have time to frolic. Just rest until you’ve recovered.”

Belldandy nodded, still keeping her eyes fixed on her dress. She asked, “How are Raven and her friends?”

Kami-sama replied, “Tired, sore, some injuries, but they’ll be fine.”

“I’m glad.” Belldandy fidgeted where she lay, her eyes still fixed on her dress but not, now, from embarrassment. A question had come to mind when she had realized the full extent of her father’s plan, but she had set aside from lack of time. Now it had returned to haunt her, and she finally sighed and lifted her gaze to the couple on the other recliner. “Father, I do not wish to question your wisdom,” she said carefully, “but that was an enormous gamble to place on a single mortal girl. What if Raven had not proven as strong as she did? We would have lost everything, had to start over from the beginning!”

Kami-sama smiled fondly at his daughter as he stroked Hild’s platinum blond hair. “No, Belldandy, it was no gamble at all, for two reasons,” he replied. “First, because the Devourer was relentless. The cult whose slaughter you took part in was the third that had been dealt with by either my Valkyries or Hild’s Furies, and it would have not been the last — sooner or later, a child of the Devourer would have grown to maturity in secret, and he would have come for our world, our people. No, the gamble would have been to continue as we were, and in a few decades ... a few centuries perhaps ... we would have inevitably lost as had all his victims before us.

“Second was Raven herself ... and Ranma before her, and that was no gamble at all but an inevitability. The one thing certain about Raven is that she will never give up, never surrender, not when it truly matters, not even when she thinks she has ... not when Ranma faced Herb or Saffron, not during her year in Niflheim, not once as a Titan, not when she faced a hideously painful death as the Devourer’s portal, never. And so thanks to that spark that would never bow to the inevitable, a spark lacked by all the hedonistic megalomaniacs raised by the Devourer’s cults on all the other worlds he conquered and fed off of, she survived the dissolution that was the normal end of being subsumed into the portal and fled back to a simpler time in both lives, before everything began to go wrong, and took more strength from her memories as she recalled her lives. And her inevitable survival and just as inevitable recovery of her memories and decision to strike back at her so-called ‘father’, combined with her link to both the Devourer as her soul-father and Hild and I as her adopted grandparents, gave us the opportunity we needed to finally end his rampage across the multiverse.”

“I see.” Belldandy’s eyes dropped as she blushed in shame. “I am sorry that I doubted you.”

“Don’t be,” her father replied. “Belldandy, look at me.” When his daughter raised her head he smiled encouragingly. “Others may need to take my commands on faith, but I believe that you have reached a point in power and understanding that that is no longer necessary. So please, if time and circumstances permit, feel free to ask me anything.

“And now, I believe you have recovered enough to rejoin your family. Your husband, at least, will be _very_ happy to share his relief at the world’s survival with you.”

Belldandy blushed furiously at Hild’s knowing grin as she rose to her feet, bowed to her elders and made her farewells, then started toward the door that had appeared on the beach some twenty yards away. By the time she reached it she was running.

/\

Hild giggled as Belldandy vanished through the door and the door itself disappeared. She mused, “If Keiichi chooses to celebrate his family’s survival in the time-honored fashion you may find yourself with another half-mortal grandchild in nine months. He’s certainly still vigorous enough, and I’m not sure she’s figured out that in this case ‘more’ isn’t necessarily ‘better’. Or at least that there are limits.”

She felt Kami’sama’s chuckle rumble through her head lying on his chest. “Oh, she understands that well enough,” he disagreed, “she just doesn’t think they’ve reached their limits, yet. Keiichi is doing well for his family, and the eldest is almost ready to leave the nest. And she loves little children.”

“Perhaps she _does_ understand, and about more than that,” Hild replied, her eyes cross-eyed from watching her finger tracing lazy circles on her ex’s chest through his Hawaiian shirt inches in front of her face. “Certainly she understands about us and has kept quiet — and she actually questioned your decisions with respect to Raven!”

“Yes, she did. I may not be able to play favorites, but I’m still glad that she was the first viable candidate to finally take that step — now we both have heirs, and as close sisters their level of cooperation will be very high, indeed. Our daughter did very well this time, as well. The individual initiative she displayed wasn’t surprising, but it _was_ impressive, both her ability to make decisions on the fly and delegate.”

“Yes, Urd is coming along nicely,” Hild agreed. “At this rate, in a thousand years or so they’ll both be ready and we can retire.”

For a moment the two fell silent, content to simply luxuriate in each other’s presence, then Kami-sama quietly asked, “Will you be able to last that long?”

“Yes, now that I have Urd for backup and to provide a somewhat more convenient shoulder to cry on I can last as long as it takes.” With a reluctant sigh, Hild levered herself up to a sitting position. “And now I’m afraid I have to take my own leave. Just because the Devourer has been defeated doesn’t mean his demons rampaging through Niflheim have magically disappeared, and once they’re dealt with there’ll still be quite a mess to clean up. Besides, I have a _very_ special guest to make arrangements for. The Devourer didn’t really hurt us all that badly, so his soul’s time with us before being passed on to the last world he emptied of life will be limited — which means I’ll have to come up with something ... creative.”

Kami-sama shivered at the gloating tone to Hild’s voice. “Remember, Justice, not Vengeance,” he warned.

“Aw, you’re no fun!” Hild declared, mock-pouting, before she nodded. “Yes, I’ll make sure the punishment fits the sin. Perhaps Urd would like to help, it’ll further her education.” After a moment’s consideration, she reluctantly shook her head. “No, too soon and too personal. That’ll have to wait for later.”

Bending down, she kissed him firmly. “A marker for our own private celebration, once we’ve visited Raven and put out our fires, and won’t be missed by anyone not in the know,” she promised before rising to her feet and sauntering toward the again-visible door. Though gods and demons weren’t as driven by sex as mortals were, it had been a _long_ time since they had made love and almost as long since she had sought comfort in his arms. She was enjoying the feel of her ex’s gaze on her back as she went ... or rather, her back _side_ — it was good know that she could still draw his attention when she wanted.

/oOo\

The endless, timeless all-encompassing white ended in an eyeblink, and Starfire found herself where she had been, high in the air above the massive hole with the wide pillar supporting Trigon’s throne ... and surrounding the throne, a world returned to normal, the sounds of traffic (with undoubtedly very confused drivers, suddenly finding themselves starting into motion from a dead stop), a few pigeons landing on streetlamps, the buildings on either side and road below returned to their natural state — and the pavement rapidly approaching. _Raven!_

Starfire pulled out of her fall and swept up, looking around frantically — there! She dove toward the limp, falling, white-caped — and considerably larger than before — form, desperately trying to cut the angle before her friend hit the ground ... and spiraled away and up as the winged platinum-blonde woman Raven had identified as her mother intercepted her falling daughter. The woman dropped several yards to kill Raven’s momentum, then flew up toward Starfire as several of the other winged women — the ‘Furies’ — joined her. She was talking rapidly as she joined Starfire. “— those corpses off the streets and buildings. Mary, detail some of your people to help get Robin, Beast Boy and Cyborg back to the island, the rest help Miriam. Once the cleanup’s done we’ll coordinate with our people in Asgard and head for Niflheim. Starfire —” She focused on the princess, and her eyes widened. “Mary, a couple more of your people to escort Starfire in case she collapses on the way home. Starfire, what happened to your arm!?”

“What?” Starfire looked down to find the arm whose power amplifier had blown up mangled and dangling limp, with blood runneling off her fingers in thin streams to fall toward the street below and the pedestrians staring and pointing up toward them (many hands holding phones) ... the ones not gaping at the inhuman corpses abruptly — from their point of view — draped over cars and littering the streets and sidewalks.

“Never mind, it’s obvious,” Urd said with a sigh. “Raven is going to _kill_ me for loaning you those amplifiers — or at least rant at me for awhile.” Two more Furies joined them, one of them holding a small box, and Urd nodded approvingly. “Good thinking. I have a kit, but a second never hurts. Let’s go.”

/oOo\

In a small cavern deep in one of the mountains surrounding Jump City, the light bringing the Earth’s salvation vanished as suddenly as it had come, leaving the cavern dark except for a faint glow radiating from the stone figure of a teenaged girl. That glow slowly brightened, bringing out the blacks and browns of the cavern walls, until it abruptly vanished as well, and the figure slowly crumpled to the ground.

Even as Terra smacked down onto the cold stone floor with a soft cry of pain fresh lights came on, lighting up the cavern with a warm, yellow light. She glanced around from where she lay, confused. Slade hadn’t had any lights like that installed, and certainly not motion-sensitive.

Then a cool breeze drifted across her, and she shivered and pushed herself up off the stone floor, frowning as she glanced down at herself, and stiffened. “Hey, what happened to my clothes?” And considering how cool her _head_ was ... a hand rubbed along her bare scalp — “My hair!” She bolted to her feet to frantically examine herself ... not a single body-hair to be found, what was going on!?

She looked around again, and frowned when she noticed the cot set up against one wall with a pile of blankets, beside a table and chair — those hadn’t been around before, how long had she been unconscious? And why wasn’t she waking up in jail? _I suppose the Titans might have decided my turning against Slade in the end was enough to let me off with a little humiliation. More than I deserve, really, I’m getting off lightly with being stripped and shaved._ But it didn’t _feel_ like she was getting off lightly, and her heart clenched as she thought of the home the Titans had given her, that she’d thrown away. And especially the green shapechanger that had always been able to make her laugh, that had so painfully obviously wanted to be more than friends, whose heart she’d abused so badly. She wiped angrily at wet eyes. _Enough, it’s your fault you’re alone again, you were stupid, crying about it isn’t going to change that. You’re tough, you’ll survive._

She shivered as the light breeze again brushed across her naked goosebumped body. Hurrying over, she grabbed up a folded blanket on the cot and wrapped it around herself, instantly feeling better ... both more warm and less naked. Then she saw the clock sitting on the table with a date display and dropped down onto the cot, feeling faint. It had been _months!_ She stared at the clock with its impossible date. _Okay, maybe the Titans_ aren’t _punishing me. What’s going on?_

Finally, as the her shock at the date eased off, she finally noticed a stack of letters sitting next to the clock. Grabbing them, she shifted to sit cross-legged on the cot, pulled another blanket around her, and started reading. The letter order was easy to figure out, each envelope had a date scrawled on it, one every one to two weeks.

The first was from Robin, and straightforward enough — a picture of her as a statue and a brief statement that she was still welcome with the Titans, and that if she was all right all she needed to do was follow the instructions to the switch for the alert and wait and they’d be over to pick her up as soon as they were free to come get her.

There was nothing straightforward about the rest of the letters, though — they were all from Beast Boy ... Gar ... and they were love letters. Oh, not _obviously_ love letters, they didn’t have the sappy sentiments and bad poetry that too often filled such, especially from teenagers. Instead each one told what had gone on in the Titans’ lives since the previous one, enemies fought, pranks pulled, grief, fear and joy ... and each one ended the same way: _I miss you._

She didn’t realize she was crying until her tears dropped onto the last letter, and when she wiped at her cheeks they weren’t just damp, they were wet. But she didn’t even try to keep the broad smile off her face as she hurried to find the alert switch and then curled up on the cot under the blankets with the letters clutched to her chest. It seemed she still had a home, after all.

/oOo\

Awareness of the world around her slowly seeped into Raven’s consciousness — the feel of grass on her bare legs, a warm gentle breeze, the murmur of voices, someone holding her hand, all very domestic. She was still alive. She was surprised — surely the amount of pain she’d suffered in the attack on Trigon _should_ have meant something seriously bad was happening to her? But no, she wasn’t numb and she didn’t hurt, not even a little.

 _Not physically, at least, let’s see how I’m doing mentally._ For the second time since Robin had found her, she allowed the world to fade away as she dove deep into her mind to survey her mental ‘landscape’. And again, she was surprised — it was still whole. Oh, there were some ‘blown seams’ along where the various aspects of her personality had been patched back together, Anger’s only holding link was to Determination (no surprise, considering the rant she’d thrown at her ‘father’ right before she helped kill him), but somehow she had come out of the fight still a single, unitary personality. And the constant anger and hatred ‘bubbling’ in the background was gone, the link she’d had to Trigon still there but broken, leading nowhere. _We’re gonna have to do something about that before I go back into action_ , she thought as she slowly ‘resurfaced’ into the waking world. _Having an open backdoor into my mind would be a_ really _bad thing if we run into any mentalists._

Then the emotions of the person holding her hand flowed over her: _very_ familiar after-battle jitters, but relaxed, happy, love-filled ... and a particular ‘flavor’ of happy/exasperated love that she hadn’t sensed in years. Her eyes flew open to find what she’d expected: Urd kneeling by her side, smiling down at her. Instantly she was sitting up, one arm around her mother and her hand being held now clutching tight. Her mother’s free arm returned the one-arm hug — a hug well above what she would have been capable of when she last remembered. She was her normal size again.

Even as Raven joyfully breathed in her mother’s scent (mainly sweat after the stress of the battle, but she didn’t care) she had her eyes clenched shut against a cascade of memories, all as fresh as if they’d happened that morning: a huge Mama Urd rocking her to sleep while her two-toned angel World of Elegance loomed over both of them singing a wordless lullaby; a somewhat smaller (but still large) Mama Urd glaring at her grandmother, radiating angry resignation as Raven examined the racing broom Hild had given her for her birthday; Mama Urd at her proper size and in her battlesuit, hugging her and assuring her that Trigon wasn’t her fault. But she also remembered nodding to Urd ( _not_ Mama Urd) from where she knelt naked on park grass a few yards away, next to an equally naked Akane lying stretched on the lawn. Raven’s hands were cupped with a ball of light bobbing above them — a ball of light that within seconds would become half of her soul. _This is going to take some getting used to._

Finally, she pulled back with a sigh. “I guess we won.”

“No, kitling, _you_ won,” Urd corrected, smiling at her.

Raven’s eyes went misty. She said, “You haven’t called me that in years.”

“Hey, you were the one that decided you were all grown up and we should drop the pet names,” Urd reminded her with a laugh.

Raven giggled, luxuriating in the love radiating from her mother without a hint of the self-loathing guilt that had helped drive her away from her mothers four years before. But she finally sighed and broke the clinch as worries for others pushed their way to the forefront. She asked, “Where are the rest of the Titans? Are they all right?”

“Starfire’s right behind you, the others are on their way.”

Raven twisted around, then shot to her feet at the sight of her friend standing a few yards away ... and of one of the Furies adjusting a sling supporting an arm with a bandage wrap covering it from elbow to wrist. “Starfire, what happened to you!?” Raven demanded as she rushed over, then before Starfire had a chance to answer continued, “No, never mind, I know. I thought I told you not to use the damaged power amplifier, what were you thinking!?”

Starfire just smiled at her ranting friend. “I was thinking that such a foe required everything I had, whatever the cost. Friend Raven, did you not make the same choice?”

Raven paused, mouth open for her retort, as she remembered shrieking as she fought to ignore the pain threatening to swallow her whole even as she poured Belldandy’s gift through her link with her father. “I suppose —”

“Raven, are you all right? What happened to you?”

She turned at the sound of Robin’s voice to find the rest of the Titans landing on the tiny beach of what she now realized was Titans Island. Robin was dropping the last few feet to the beach after being released by the Fury carrying him, Cyborg right behind being carried by two Furies on each arm (how they did that without their wings interfering with each other Raven didn’t know). Then Beast Boy seemed to appear from nowhere leaping down from Cyborg as he reverted from whatever tiny creature he’d been to his human form.

She fought the urge to sweep them up in a massive group hug (or an attempt at one, considering one of them would be Cyborg’s hulking form) as her boys’ emotions washed over her — worry, the comedown from a big fight, happiness, but none of the markers for pain or injury. As much as she found herself thirsting for physical contact, her relationship with her boys had never been touchy-feely. If she started now, they’d think she’d lost her mind. “I’m fine ... more than fine,” she reassured them.

“Are you certain?” Robin asked. “You’ve changed.”

“Yeah!” Beast Boy exclaimed. “You’re all white and red and stuff.”

“What!?” Raven looked down at herself, eyes widening at the sight of white skin instead of the gray she’d seen in the mirror for all of her current life. She hastily looked over all of herself she could see — all white, her skin now in addition to her costume. She demanded, “What’s red?”

Robin replied, “Your hair has some red shading mixed in with the black.” He glanced over at Urd lounging on the grass, smiling at their reunion, and his body relaxed as his worry vanished. Cyborg followed his gaze and followed suit.

Now behind Raven, Starfire gently ran her fingers through her friend’s hair. “It is truly lovely, we shall need to visit the shop of fashion to see what styles best bring it out,” she said happily.

 _Reddish? Ranma!_ “B-but ... h-h-how ...” Raven stuttered, before breaking off, shrugging. It couldn’t be genetic, there was no physical continuity from her life as Ranma, so it had to be mystical. Her mothers would have answers, but since Momma Urd wasn’t freaking out it could wait until she could find a mirror (and for the first time in years, thinking of looking at herself in a mirror didn’t make her flinch). Sensing the worry still coming off Beast Boy in waves, she mock-frowned at him. “You can relax, Gar, blue is still my favorite color, and you’re still not funny.”

“Hey!” Beast Boy exclaimed as the other Titans laughed and Starfire giggled, but Raven relaxed as she felt his relief.

Then others joined the laughter, and her head whipped around to find Mara and Lind standing a few yards away. Instantly, she threw herself across those yards into a three-way hug. And again, found herself fighting crystal clear memories — Mama Lind sitting cross-legged across from her, teaching her to meditate, to calm herself enough that she could play with the divine children in their neighborhood without being drugged; Mama Mara finding her terrified little girl trying desperately to clean up the mess she’d made of Mama Urd’s potion supplies, and her resigned amusement as she’d looked down at Raven’s wide, tear-filled eyes for a moment before silently (and safely) ‘helping’ Raven pick up the broken vials and sweep and mop up the spilled ingredients; Raven and all three of her mothers naked in a hot spring, and Raven finding out just how much her new teenage hormones were affecting her, and that like Ranma before her she was still very much attracted to girls. And even as she felt her cheeks heat up with fresh embarrassment at perving on her own mothers, another memory — the massive blade of Lind’s halberd between her and Akane, blocking Raven’s own blade just short of Akane’s throat.

Breaking the hug, and stepping back to arm’s length — measured by each of her mothers’ hands she was holding — she looked up slightly into Lind’s eyes and quietly said, “Mama Lind, I never did say thank you for saving Akane’s life.”

Lind’s eyes widened for a moment, then she smiled. “It was my duty and pleasure.” She paused for a few moments, drinking in her daughter’s face, then looked over Raven’s shoulder toward Urd for a moment, then at the rest of the Titans. She said, “Now why don’t you introduce us to your friends.”

“Like you don’t know them almost as well as I do!” Raven said, her gaze switching between Lind and Mara. “You all have been watching me all along, haven’t you?”

“Of course we have, we’re your mothers,” Mara replied. “Even if your grandfather told us to let you go, that didn’t mean we were going to just let you disappear on us. But even if we know about them they don’t know us, so let’s be polite.”

Raven blushed at Mara’s gentle admonishment. Letting go of her mother’s hands, she stepped between them and turned around, an arm going around each goddess’s waist. “Titans, you’ve already met Mama Urd, these are the rest of my mothers, Mama Mara and Mama Lind. They took me in as a baby even knowing what I am ... what I was.”

The boys’ polite response was drowned out by Starfire’s enthusiastic response, her excitement actually lifting her off the ground to hover over her teammates: “It is so marvelous to meet the mothers of Friend Raven! Thank you for raising such a wonderful daughter, she has been so good to me since helping me escape the Gordanian slavers.”

Raven’s blush turned fiery, and she opened her mouth to protest — she had been an angsty, depressed, withdrawn mess that Starfire had had to almost literally drag out of her shell, to the limited extent that the alien princess had managed that miracle. But she closed her mouth without saying anything. There was no point in burying the celebratory mood under a pile of lies from everyone if she denounced Starfire’s statement for the blatant exaggeration it was. Besides, if her mothers’ spying had been as thorough as it could have been, they already knew the truth. _I’ll have to find out just how they were spying on me, see how bad the damage is._

Then Urd glanced toward several helicopters approaching the island. “That will be the press, and our signal to be on our way. We can’t be here when they arrive,” she said with a resigned sigh. “Besides, Lind and I have responsibilities that we’ve ignored long enough. We both have understanding subordinates, but there are limits.”

“I’m coming with you,” Raven said, then hurriedly added at her friends’ sudden spike of near-panic, “I’m not leaving permanently, just for a few weeks, I think.” She tapped her forehead. “I’m all right, really, but ... a little fragile up here. I need some time for things to settle. Besides, I haven’t done more than hug my mothers in passing for four years, we need to get reacquainted.”

The rest of the Titans exchanged glances, then Robin said, “Take as long as you need, we’ll be here when you’re ready.”

“And when you return I shall cook a celebratory feast in honor of our victory!” Starfire announced gleefully, twirling in place in sheer joy at the thought.

Raven fought not to shudder at the thought — she wouldn’t have believed that there were people that _deliberately_ cooked food worse than Akane’s attempts, but Starfire’s people managed it — and she wasn’t as physically tough as she’d been as Ranma.

From the way Robin and Cyborg had gone a bit greenish, their thoughts had paralleled her own. Beast Boy was naturally green, but from the disgust he was radiating he agreed. Still, he rallied bravely and simply announced, “And when you get back I’ll have a whole new list of jokes! I’ll get you to admit I’m really funny sooner or later!”

Raven shook her head in resignation, but laughed softly as she walked over to give the startled teenager a quick hug. “I look forward to your attempt ... however lame it’ll be,” she said, before eyeing the rapidly approaching helicopters. She hastily hugged the rest of the team and said her farewells (being careful of Starfire’s arm, and making a mental note to have Starfire kidnapped to Asgard once things had calmed down, for _real_ medical attention) before turning to her mothers. Her, eyebrows rose at the sight of the portal Lind had opened while she’d been occupied, the Furies that had accompanied Urd and brought the Titans to the island already filing through. _Of course_ her mothers had secretly set up a portal on Titans Island, she couldn’t imagine why she hadn’t expected them to.

Still she couldn’t keep a beaming smile off her face as she followed Mama Mara through. She couldn’t move back in with her mothers — even beyond her place on the team she had her promise to Akane she was half-eager/half-terrified to keep — but perhaps for the first time in both of her lives, she was actually going _home_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And another story in the can! Yes, there will definitely be a sequel covering Raven’s return to Japan to keep her promise to Akane, but it’ll be awhile and it’s only fair to say that it’s going to have some very dark elements (let’s just say that the Kuno siblings haven’t gotten any saner over the past almost-two decades).
> 
> From here, my current plans are to get in a chapter or two of each of my main stories in starting with _First Chapters_ (and maybe even one of my backburner stories) and then focus on _The Flower War_ until it’s finished.
> 
> As a side note, I don't have plans to make Terra a major part of the next story, I've simply always felt that this was the perfect opportunity to bring her back and give Beast Boy a chance to shine as something beyond the team clown. And since this is my story I made use of it.
> 
> Oh, and the chapter title comes from the song of the same name by Tim McGraw:
> 
> I know how to hold a grudge  
>  I can send a bridge up in smoke  
>  And I can't count the people I've let down, the hearts I've broke  
>  You ain't gotta dig too deep  
>  If you wanna find some dirt on me  
>  But I'm learning who you've been  
>  Ain't who you've got to be  
>  It's gonna be an uphill climb  
>  Aww honey I won't lie
> 
> chorus)  
>  I ain't no angel  
>  I still got a few more dances with the devil  
>  I’m cleaning up my act little by little  
>  I’m getting there  
>  I can finally stand the man in the mirror I see  
>  I ain’t as good as I’m gonna get  
>  But I’m better than I used to be
> 
> I’ve pinned a lot of demons to the ground  
>  I’ve got a few old habits left  
>  But there’s still one or two I might need you to help me get  
>  Standing in the rain so long has left me with a little rust  
>  But put some faith in me  
>  And someday you’ll see  
>  There’s a diamond under all this dust
> 
> (chorus x2)


End file.
